Coffee Cupcakes

This is my daughter's favourite cake in the whole world. When the weather is miserable, as it is today we make cake and these are her first choice each and every time.

I should start off by explaining that I recently realised that in the US a coffee cake is a cake eaten with coffee and that it could be a plain sponge cake, a flavoured cake such as cinnamon flop or even something like crumb cake whereas here in the UK a coffee cake is a cake flavoured with coffee traditionally a sandwich cake with coffee flavoured butter cream and topped with chocolate vermicelli.

These cupcakes are a variation of that recipe



Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and gather your ingredients;

Start off with a two egg simple sponge recipe, weigh the eggs and add the same weight of sugar, butter and self raising flour. Add to that 1 tbls espresso or any strong coffee and 1/2 tsp baking powder.



Put all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and beat for a few minutes until pale and fluffy.




Line a muffin tin and divide the batter between 12 liners then bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes.




Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack and leave to cool completely before frosting.




Place 3 oz butter and 6 oz icing sugar in a large bowl and beat until creamy, add to that 1 tsp strong coffee and beat again until well combined.





Top the cupcakes with the frosting in which ever way you find easiest. I tend to put it in a bag and pipe it on, or if you prefer you can spoon it on or turn the cupcakes upside down and dip them in the frosting.




I topped these cupcakes with chocolate curls instead of the chocolate vermicelli because I just like the look of the little curls on top.




And this would be a 4 year old sized bite, rather than a mummy sized bite.