I think that a chocolate cake with chocolate icing topped with bright red raspberries all sitting up perfectly, is one of the most beautiful cakes. It is so simple yet stunning. I wrote this recipe just because I love the look of bright red raspberries sitting out of chocolate icing. I could only fit 3 raspberries on top of each of these cupcakes so it isn’t quite as spectacular looking as a full size cake with the top covered in raspberries but still pretty.
This cupcake is a rich cake, baked with cacao & melted dark chocolate. The centre is filled with crème patisserie with chopped raspberries which is a great mix of sweet and tart.
- CUPCAKES
- 275g self-raising flour
- 70g Cacao
- 100g dark vegan chocolate (chopped finely)
- 1½ cup hot almond milk with 1tsp of coffee mixed in
- 265g white sugar
- ½ tsp bi-carb soda
- 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp flax meal mixed with ⅓ cup water)
- 1 pinch of salt
- 150ml vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 punnets of fresh raspberries
- ICING – ERMINE FROSTING
- 400g castor sugar
- 90g plain flour
- 50g cacao
- 450ml almond milk
- 450g vegan margarine
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- Pinch Sea salt
- CRÈME PATISSERIE
- 250g oat milk
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 50g white sugar
- 30g cornflour
- 30g vegan margarine
- METHOD
- Pre heat oven to 175°C (347°F)
- CAKE
- Place chocolate, cacao in a medium bowl. Pour hot coffee milk over the top and mix until chocolate is fully melted. Leave to cool.
- Mix in the oil and vanilla.
- Add dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Mix in flax egg (To make the flax egg, mix golden flax and water into a small bowl and mix well. Do this just before you add it to the cake batter otherwise it becomes too thick.)
- Using an ice-cream scoop, add one scoop to each cupcake wrapper.
- Bake for 20 minutes but check after 18 minutes as ovens can vary.
- Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack until room temperature.
- CRÈME PATISSERIE
- Bring the oat milk to a boil
- Whisk the sugar and corn flour in a medium bowl.
- Pour a third of the milk over the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth
- Add the sugar mix into the saucepan with the rest of the milk.
- Cook on medium heat for 2-3 minutes whilst whisking
- Remove from heat once mix begins to thicken & large bubbles appear
- Add margarine & mix with a spatula until completely combined
- Transfer to a shallow container which is lined with plastic wrap. Place plastic on top of the crème so a skin doesn’t form.
- Once the crème patisserie is cooled and you are ready to ice the cupcakes, finely chop 1 punnet of raspberries and mix through crème patisserie. Cut a hole in top oft he cupcake and remove part of the inside of the cake (you can use a cupcake corer). Add crème patisserie mix into cupcake and put to top section of cake back on to fill the hole. Ice and top with fresh raspberries.
- ICING – ERMINE FROSTING
- Add flour and sugar to a medium saucepan and place over medium to high heat.
- Gradually add milk and stir continuously until the mix is a pudding like consistency. I usually add milk in thirds.
- Transfer container and cover with cling wrap – press the wrap onto the pudding mix to make sure that a skin doesn’t form. Cover container with lid and place in fridge until cooled. I will often do this the night before I need it.
- Once cooled, beat butter until smooth.
- Using vegan margarine, the icing will be quite soft. You will still be able to create a soft swirl of icing but if you want to make icing petals, it will be too soft. You can swap half of the margarine for vegetable shortening.
- Beat in cacao.
- Gradually add pudding while mixing. Add vanilla and salt & mix.
BAKING TIPS
Flax Meal
My preference is for Golden flax meal. I feel like it works better in the cake batter but that could be my imagination. It definitely looks better in a light coloured cake because the brown flax meal can leave flecks of brown which you can see.
I usually get golden flax meal from a health food shop but when I couldn’t find the one I like recently, I bought Golden Flax seeds from my local IGA supermarket (Australia) and ground them myself in my coffee grinder. I am so happy with how my cakes turned out, that I am going to grind my own from now one. It takes a few seconds in an electric coffee grinder and the meal is nice and fine.
Cupcake Wrappers
I also prefer to use the more upright cupcake wrappers in a thin cardboard rather than the traditional wrappers. The reason is that the traditional wrappers can be very fickle about peeling back from the cooked cake. If you undercook slightly then do it. If you keep them in a sealed plastic container, they do it. It doesn’t always happen but with the wrappers than I now use, it never happens and that make me happy! The other great advantage of these wrappers is that you don’t have to use a special pan. Then just sit on a flat tray and won’t lose their shape.
Leave a Reply