Recipe: Brownie stuffed chocolate cupcakes with Guinness frosting and Mars bar sauce

This is what the week of baking has been leading up to – the ultimate boyfriend cupcake (well, at least for my boyfriend, who’s all for chocolate and beer!). The drama queen in me calls them the Seven Sins Cupcakes. In a nutshell, they are:

1. Chocolate cupcakes
2. Stuffed with Ferrero Rocher brownies
3. Topped with Guinness frosting, and
4. Drizzled with Mars bar sauce
5. Finished with smoky peanut butter cookies
6. Chopped up Malteser’s
7. And peanut Smartie’s

Too much? Oh well, t’s too late to turn back now! Here’s the full recipe for the brownie stuffed chocolate cupcakes with Guinness frosting and Mars bar sauce. It’s such a long post!

Brownie stuffed Chocolate Cupakes Recipe (makes 9-12 cupcakes)

Just a note: I don’t make chocolate cupcakes. In fact, these were my first batch. I still prefer butter-based cupcake recipes, but these aren’t bad and they’re very easy to make. I’ve converted the recipe into cups.

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder (i used Valrhona cocoa powder)
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 40g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract (I used vanilla paste)
• Ferrero Rocher brownies, broken up in chunks

Method

1. Cream room temperature butter until loosened up and creamy in a large bowl.
2. Sieve flour, cocoa powder, caster sugar, baking powder and salt into the butter. Mix until incorporated and sandy in texture.
3. Mix milk, egg and vanilla extract together. Pour into the flour mix and beat until everything is just incorporated. Do not overmix.
4. Line 2 cupcake pans and fill cupcake cases with 1 ice-cream scoop of batter. Break up chunks of Ferrero Rocher brownies and put one piece in each scoop. Top up with batter until 2/3 full.
5. Bake at 150C for around 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Guinness Buttercream Frosting Recipe (for 9-12 cupcakes)

• 227 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
• 1 cup Guinness Extra Stout

Method

1. Boil Guinness on medium heat until it reduces to around 3 tablespoons, about 10 minutes. Stir every now and then to make sure it’s not sticking to the pan or burning. When done, the Guinness should be like balsamic vinegar in thickness.
2. Cream room temperature butter until soft and fluffy. Scrape down the sides.
3. Add alternatively the icing sugar and the milk. With the mixer on low, start with sieving 1/3 the icing sugar into the butter, then 1/2 of the milk, and so on. Crank up to high speed and mix until the frosting just turns creamy.
4. Mix in the vanilla paste until blended in.
5. Lastly, add in the thickened Guinness a tablespoons at a time, paying attention to the texture of the frosting to make sure it doesn’t go too thin.
6. Pipe the cupcakes when they have completely cooled down!

The Guinness reduced should be like balsamic vinegar

Mars bar sauce recipe (for drizzling over 9-12 cupcakes)

I had this for the first time the other night at my South African friend’s house with vanilla ice cream. So GOOD. Apparently they have Mars bar sauce with everything in South Africa, can’t wait to check that out when I’m in the country in a few short weeks!

• 1 Mars bar
• 1/3 cup milk

Method

1. Break Mars bar into small chunks.
2. On low heat, add the Mars bar and half of the milk. Stir constantly.
3. As the chocolate melts, add the remaining milk.
4. Pour the sauce into a bowl and let it cool down, stirring occasionally so that it doesn’t solidify.
5. When it’s reached room temperature, drizzle the sauce over the Guinness frosting.

Assembling these bad boys

The fun bit is finally here! Drizzle the Mars bar sauce generously over the frosted cupcakes. The tidiest way to do this is to use a piping bag and just snip off the tip, then squeeze the sauce in a criss-cross pattern.

Then in goes the rest of the sweet treats. Give the Smarties and Malteaser’s a very quick whizz in the blender, or just chop it up, and sprinkle over the cupcakes for great neon colour. Lastly, stick the smoky peanut butter cookies in.

And there you have it. They certainly are the most decadent cupcakes I’ve ever made. They sure went down a treat!

Recipe: Perfectly chewy Ferroro Rocher brownies, no joke (with adorable DIY birthday bunting)

My favourite April Fool’s stunt is not showing up to class. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in a full-time job situation, so there’s not much to celebrate this year.

It’s the boyfriend’s birthday this week, so I’ve been baking up a storm at home – there’s a big post coming up over the weekend!

Anywho, I haven’t made brownies in years, but yesterday, I found the perfect brownie recipe. It’s perfect, full stop. And I kicked it up a notch with a cheeky sprinkling of Ferrero Rocher on top. Hello gooey chocolatey hazelnutty heaven.

Recipe (12 regular brownies)

• 1⁄2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste
• 2 large eggs
• 1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1⁄3 cup cocoa powder (I used Valrhona)
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 cup flour
• 4-6 Ferrero Rochers

Method

1. Sieve together baking powder, cocoa powder, salt and flour.
2. In a separate large bowl, vigorously stir together oil and sugar until blended. It will look like lemon sorbet when it’s done!
3. Add the eggs and vanilla to the sugar mixture and give it a good stir until incorporated.
4. Tip the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Stir until it becomes a rich, thick batter.
5.  Grease your baking pan. Pour in the batter and spread evenly with a spatula.
6. Here’s the fun bit! Cut up or crumble the Ferrero Rochers and sprinkle over the top of the batter. I only used about 4 but it was plenty.
7. Bake at 160C for about 18 minutes. You  might want to take it out around 15 minutes if you want it very gooey.
8. Hold your horses and let it cool before you dig in with plenty of milk.

I love these brownies. They are ridiculously easy to make and so chewy, especially around the edges! The Ferrero Rocher gives it a nice hazelnutty kick. Next time I’ll add in some nuts for extra crunch as well!

Since these are birthday brownies, I took it further with some DIY cute birthday bunting. It’s so easy to do!

What you need

• String
• Toothpicks
• Old magazine pages

I just got a gorgeous Pottery Barn summer catalogue in the mail, and it’s a goldmine for colourful patterns for the bunting!

Very simply, draw 2 parallel lines across a print you like. Draw triangles between the lines. When you’re done, fold the paper along the base of the triangles. Then simply cut out the triangles, and you have your bunting!

Write on the bunting should you want to, position them on the string, and glue together the pointy end. Tie the string to the toothpicks, and set them on the brownies. Ta-da!