Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

What better to warm up in the cold weather than with a bold chocolate orange cupcake? These cakes were probably my best bake so far. When i made the sponge mix it was nearly the same consistency as when i make victoria sponge, less runny than the other cupcake mixes i've made, more robust and stable. This resulted in a really soft sponge with that slight firm crust on the outside :)

fancy instagram photos always makes them look better ^_^

1 tbsp of orange zest was just enough to get that tang running through- absolutely delicious!

It was a nice surprise when i opened the oven door and all my cupcakes had risen to a pretty consistent size! that's never happened before for me- and they hardly sunk either! Brilliant!

fresh out the oven- check out that consistency!... and err... mind the mess... *cough*

cooling on my make-shift cooling rack (an upside down utensil divider)

For the frosting, i had a look at the recipe and once again, i was pretty unsure about the measurements... so i took a bold move and made it myself, using the same ingredients but tasting and adding as i went along. I've done this before with plenty of buttercreams, but never with a frosting. It worked out to be quite easy, just enough icing sugar to take away the bitterness of the zest and the cocoa, and just enough butter to mellow down the sugar, and cream cheese to give it the right consistency.

frosting on the left, cake-mix on the right

I reckon i should just do all the frosting by eye from now on, this is THE BEST cream cheese frosting i've EVER made.

The only thing i was debating was whether to decorate with a sprinkle of orange zest (pretty but i think, bitter) or just a little orange jelly wedge (easy but looks a little lost.. and a bit like a piece of lego pizza)... i chose the latter, but on reflection- i should really have chosen the zest. D'oh!!!!

Oh well, they came out pretty impressive by my standard anyway. I even took more pictures in hope it would make my blog slightly more interesting :P

Need to work on that rustic smear of frosting with the palette knife...