Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

In the weekend we had friends over for lunch. I made these little chocolate cherry cupcakes for our dessert. Lunch was pot luck – a good way of doing things when you have a baby and limited time. I bought some bread, made a big green salad and a chicken filo pie and our friends bought lasagne and a paella, both of which were delicious. The recipe for the cakes is one I adapted from a Julie Le Clerc recipe for a chocolate cherry bundt cake. I didn’t have morello cherries like the recipe called for and also didn’t have all the ground almonds that the recipe required, so I reduced the ground almond in take and upped the four, and used the cherries I had in the pantry.

You could make these cakes with frozen raspberries rather than the cherries and you could add chunks of chocolate, white or dark. The cherries actually mashed up a bit when I folded them through, which kind of gives my cakes more of a cherry swirl look – you could swirl good quality cherry jam through to get a similar effect. I decorated the tops of the cakes with simply whipped cream with a little vanilla bean paste added and sprinkled pink sprinkles on top and added an icing flower. So simple, but so effective!



Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes (adapted from Julie Le Clerc)

125g butter
¾ c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3/4c ground almonds
½ c sour cream
1c self raising flour
1/2c flour
¼ c cocoa
1 can cherries, drained

• Cream butter and sugar and then add in vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at a time
• Stir in almonds and sour cream, then remaining dry ingredients, lastly folding through the cherries
• Spoon into cupcake cases and bake at 180c for 20-25 minutes
• Once cold top with whipped cream and decorate