Chocolate cupcakes in icecream cones with fresh strawberry icing

My best friend and one of the most awesome people in the world had his birthday at Trippy Taco today, so I made cupcakes. We had an outdoor table and it was a pretty warm day, so we really appreciated that the staff at Trippy offered to put the containers of cupcakes in the fridge for us till we were ready for them. I have to say, the staff at Trippy are lovely. I've always had great service there, no matter how busy they are, they are always friendly and the food is always incredibly good. To say thanks for letting us use their fridge space we gave them some cupcakes which I hope they enjoyed. 

I think most people like chocolate cake, and I hadn't made chocolate cupcakes for a while. So while chocolate, like vanilla, may be accused of being boring, I opted to make chocolate cake. Baked in ice-cream cones. Topped with icing made with fresh strawberries. Now you can't accuse that of being just another boring old chocolate cupcake!

The cake itself is almost a mud cake, but not quite. It's not as heavy as a mud cake but is really moist and chocolatey without being too rich. The original recipe my mum had written down on her old hand written recipe cards asked for buttermilk, but I used soy milk and vinegar as a substitute

Almost mudcake chocolate cupcakes. 

If you want a stronger chocolate taste, use dark chocolate instead of milk. The cake itself will last for 4-5 days, however if you are using ice-cream cones these start to lose their crispness after a day or 2.

Ingredients

• 250 grams nuttalex or butter
• 300 grams of milk chocolate, chopped
• 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 cup of soy milk
• 1 teaspoon of vinegar
• 1/4 cup of coffee (either 2 shots from a coffee machine, or 2 tablespoons instant coffee in 1/4 cup of water)
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups caster sugar
• 3/4 cup of cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of bicarb soda (baking soda)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 2 cups of plain flour
• Flat bottomed ice-cream cones. This mix volume will fill around 40 small cones, or 24 cupcake papers. 

Method

1. Set the oven to 170 degrees.
2. Line the ice cream cones up on a baking tray, with a few centimeters space around them in case of overflow. I lined mine up inside 12 hole cupcake trays. 
3. Put the butter and the chopped chocolate in a metal bowl and place this over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Stir till all is melted and combined then take the mix off the heat and leave to cool to room temperature. 
4. In a mixer, beat together the eggs, oil, coffee, soy milk and vinegar till blended.
5. Add the cooled chocolate mix to the egg mix and beat till combined.
6. Pour in the sugar and beat for about a minute to dissolve in most of the sugar. 
7. Sift together the flour, cocoa, bicarb soda and baking powder.
8. Fold the sifted dry ingredients into the chocolate mixture. Mix through gently till combined.
9. Spoon the mix into your ice-cream cones (or cupcake papers), filling each to only half way. The cakes will double in size in cooking. 
10. Bake for 30 minutes, then check if cakes are ready. Cakes are cooked when a knife poked into the centre comes out clean. 
11. Cook cakes on a wire rack.
12. When cakes are cooled, top with fresh strawberry icing and decorate with chocolate flakes, cherries or ice-cream sprinkles. 

Fresh Strawberry icing

Because of the fresh strawberries in this icing it should only be kept for 2-3 days in the fridge so is best made the day you want to use it. 

Ingredients

• 100 grams fresh strawberries, hulled and chopped. 
• 50 grams nuttalex or butter, chopped and softened to room temperature
• 500 grams pure icing sugar

Method

1. Puree strawberries in blender or food processor till smooth
2. Place the nuttalex and the strawberries in a mixer and beat to break the nuttalex up and spread it through the strawberries. The mix won't combine yet so don't stress about seeing little bits of yellow floating in strawberry juice.
3. Sift the icing sugar.
4. Fold 1/4 of icing sugar into the strawberry mix and then blend to combine. Repeat with the remaining icing sugar 4 more times, till all icing sugar is mixed in. 
5. Beat at high speed till the icing is smooth and creamy. 

I decorated my cupcakes with chocolate flakes and a cherry. I only got a photo of one cupcake - the one that wouldn't fit in the carrier. 

This is a cross section of the cupcake, showing that the cake goes all the way to the bottom. Previously I have made these for kid parties with half a jersey caramel in the bottom of each cone. The caramel melts and spreads over the bottom of the cone. 

Unfortunately as I learned today, these cupcakes are not entirely transport friendly. Cupcake carriers are not made to take them, and they are a little top heavy so do try to fall over any chance they get. I did manage to hold them upright by using upside down empty cones, and un-iced leftover cupcakes as spacers in between each cake, wedging them in the hope they would stay upright. It worked pretty well and we only had one cupcake casualty. 

Any cupcake recipe can be made using ice-cream cones instead of cupcake papers, but you are best off using a recipe you have already made before or one that tells you how much the recipe rises. This is because you need to know how far to fill the cone. If you over fill, the cake mix will rise up too far and flow over the edge of the cone, ruining the effect of your ice-cream cone cupcakes. The baking times using cones will be pretty much the same as it would baking your recipe in cupcake papers, but you should check the cakes a few minutes earlier just to be sure.