Tuesday 15 June 2010

Chocolate Orange Crumble Cupcakes

These should really be called 'leftovers' cupcakes, as the idea was conceived when I couldn't initially find a pan big enough to bake the Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake in. "Don't worry" I said to myself, "CT doesn't like rhubarb anyway, so you'll have to bake him something - cook the excess batter as cupcakes".

Then I found a skillet type pan which was big enough to take all the rhubarb cake batter. But the need to bake for CT didn't go away and there were still leftovers from the cake - a small quantity of sour cream and the zest of half an orange, plus I really liked the idea of a crumble topping on cupcakes. So I made these:

Ingredients
100g softened butter
100g caster sugar
2 large eggs
150g SR flour
50mls sour cream
finely grated zest of half a large orange
100g bar Honeycomb Crisp Toblerone - chopped fairly small

Topping - 55g butter, 70g plain flour, 50g demerara sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 190C. Place paper cases into a supporting muffin or cupcake tin.(I used muffin cases and made 9 cakes.)
Make the topping by melting the butter in a small bowl in the microwave and mixing in the flour and sugar - set aside to cool.
Put all the remaining ingredients except the chocolate into a bowl and beat until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the chopped chocolate.
Divide the mixture between cupcake cases, filling them 2/3 full. Crumble a little of the topping mixture over each cake, trying to make the crumbs quite small.
Bake until well risen, golden and springy to the touch - about 25 minutes depending on size.
Cool on a wire rack.

These were not fairy-light cupcakes, in fact they were quite like muffins in texture. The little pieces in the chopped Toblerone (honey and almond nougat and crisped rice) and the crisp crumble on top gave a varied texture to the cake. The flavoured milk chocolate and the orange zest added up to an interesting but subtle flavour! I don't usually use milk chocolate in cakes, but here the extra sweetness balanced the lower amount of sugar and the sour cream in the batter. 

7 comments:

Choclette said...

These look great too and again I like the addition of the crumble - it makes a welcome change for butter cream on top.

Lucie said...

Suelle this our my kind of cupcakes! I must try these. Thanks for sharing. Love your blogs new look too!

Caroline said...

They look lovely Suelle, what a great way to use up bits and pieces!

Was your crumble quite clumpy before you put it on, I tend to find my crumble is more breadcrumb like, but yours looks chunkier, and much better for it!

Hope the CT liked them!

Suelle said...

C - using melted butter to make the crumble bound the flour and sugar together into one mass, which then became crumbly as it cooled a bit. I'd never made a crumble topping this way before and I must say it did avoid the problems of loose dusty flour and too fine crumbs on top. Thankyou Martha Stewart!

Caroline said...

Ah, didn't spot the different method - sounds really successful. I so don't need to bake this weekend, but these do look too good to resist! Mind you, I'm so behind on blogging that it'd take weeks to post them!

Saira said...

These are gorgeous, I have made them using Terrys chocolate orange and also Mint Matchmakers. Fabulous recipe, thank you.

Suelle said...

Thanks, Saira. Those sound like tasty variations.