Orange & Chocolate Cupcakes

It’s crazy how big Valentine’s Day has become. All I see around me today is chocolate, hearts and red flowers!

Greedy marketing operations aside, I like the idea of having one day in the year where you are reminded to be romantic. We shouldn’t feel obliged to buy chocolates or flowers, but if your partner is not a very romantic person then why not use Valentine’s Day as a little reminder to show your loved ones that you care? We don’t need fancy dinners, it’s the simple thoughts that matter guys! ;)

This year, Valentine’s Day was an excuse to bake cupcakes for the first time! I was looking for a simple recipes of vanilla cupcakes, in the end I found this alternative with orange flavour and chocolate frosting, which turned out to be really good.

I wanted to wait until today to eat them, but it was too hard to resist and have been eating them for two days now! ;)

My Valentine’s Day will be a very sweet one! :) What about yours?

Ingredients

* 1 cup plain flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* a pinch of salt
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 stick butter, at room temperature
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 1/4 cup double cream
* 3  tbs orange juice
* 1 tbs vanilla extract
* 3 tbs orange zest
* 1/2 cup chocolate, broken into small pieces or the chips

For the decoration:

* 10 dark chocolate squares
* 2 or 3 tablespoons cream

Preparation:

Whisk butter and sugar till foamy, then add one egg at a time. Add the vanilla extract, flour, salt, baking powder and orange zest. At low speed beat in the flour, cream and the orange juice a little bit of each at a time.

Dust the chocolate pieces/chips with flour and gently fold them in right before you fill in the cupcake liners.

Pre-heat oven to 350°C. Pour the batter into the  cupcake liners till they are 3/4 full. I made 11 cakes.

Bake for about 15-18 minutes. Cool completely on wire rack.

For the decoration: melt the chocolate and the cream in a bain-marie, then let it cool down for 15′. Use a piping bag (or plastic sandwich bag) to decorate the cupcakes.