Cappuccino Cup-cakes

All around me I see coffee-lovers drinking multiple cups of coffee a day in this warm weather. Me personally, I get hot flashes just looking at a warm cup of coffee, but coffee-lovers seem not to mind. I started wondering, is there something to it? With the weekly poll coming to a tie between tropical cupcakes and cappuccino cupcakes, you’d expect I’d choose the first, but that would have been too predictable. Besides the summer isn’t going nowhere for now, so I’ll have plenty of time to make tropical cupcakes some time. The odd thing is, I normally do not like coffee, but in cakes and desserts, I love it! Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Cappuccino Cupcakes recipe: Nigella Lawson - How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Ingredients for Cake:
- ¾ cup self-rising cake flour
- ½ cup soft unsalted butter
- 7 tablespoons sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 heaped tablespoon instant espresso
- 2-3 tablespoons milk

Ingredients for Icing:
- 5 ½ ounces white chocolate
- ¼ cup butter
- ½ cup + 1 tablespoon sour cream (I substituted this with cream cheese)
- 1 ⅔ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- scant teaspoon cocoa powder

Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
- Put all the cupcake ingredients except for the milk into a food processor and blitz to combine. Pulse again, adding milk down the funnel to form a batter with a soft, dropping consistency. Spoon into the baking cups in their pan and put in the oven to cook for about 20 minutes. When ready, remove from the oven and leave in the pan to cool for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack.
- When they’re completely cold, get on with the icing. Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave or double boiler, and after it’s cooled a little, stir in the sour cream. Gradually beat in the sifted confectioners’ sugar. And if the consistency isn’t right for icing, add either hot water to thin or more sifted sugar to thicken. Spread roughly and generously over the top of each cupcake, and then dust sparingly with cocoa, by pressing a little through ha tea strainer, so that they look like little cups of chocolate-dusted cappuccino.


The cake batter uses instant espresso for its coffee flavor.
Think of it as a blonde mocha cake with white chocolate frosting.

Mini cappuccino cup-cakes.

I’m marveled at the fact that I love them so much, since I don’t drink coffee.
I’ve always loved the smell of coffee beans and eating coffee-flavored desserts,
but actually drinking coffee … yuck!

Drinking eating my cappuccino!