Mint Choc Chip Cupcakes & Recipe

I have had a bottle of Creme de Menthe lurking in my room, since the boyfriends 21st when we made After Eight shots (layer Kahlua, Creme de Menthe, and top with Baileys) I love Creme de Menthe but other than those particular shots I struggle to use it with or in anything else (though I have just had a fairly obvious brain-wave to put some in a hot chocolate). I fell in love with the bottle as well though, so it has been decorating my shelf for a while.

And so my love of mint chocolate was materialised as these (mildly alcoholic) Mint Choc Chip Cupcakes! Okay they don't have chocolate chips which might have made an interesting addition but Mint Choc Chip is just catchier than Creme de Menthe Cupcakes. They were amazing regardless. This might have been the best cupcake mixture I have ever made. Which I kind of needed because the first lot of cakes I made (a completely different recipe btw) sunk and looked like soggy yorkshire puds, not appetizing! The buttercream icing I may have gone a bit overboard on the mint with. I don't really have a recipe for buttercream icing, I kinda just throw some icing sugar and butter together with maybe a little bit of water until it starts to create a good consistency. So I was testing it so much that I kind of became immune to how minty they were, luckily the willing taste tester (unfortunate housemate) stopped me before they began to taste like toothpaste.

Got to love mint chocolate, takes me back to having Mint Choc Chip ice cream cones at the Forestry Centre as a kid. And it being sunny, like all of the time. Which of course it wasn't, this is England c'mon.

In case you care in the slightest, here is the recipe:

50g Cocoa Powder (I used Cadbury's)

230ml Boiling Water

175g Plain Flour

2 tsps Baking Powder

Pinch of Salt

115g Softened Butter

2 Eggs

2 tsps Vanilla Extract

Super simple, mix the chocolate powder with the water and leave to cool. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) and separately mix together the butter and sugar and then beat the eggs into this mixture. Add the butter/sugar/egg mixture into the dry ingredients and then gradually add the cooled hot chocolate and vanilla essence. Fill the cupcake cases about half full and pop in the oven for 15-20 mins, but just keep checking on them until you can poke a toothpick into them and it comes out clean. Easy. Peasy. 

As I said the icing was really just trial and error, and then add some Creme de Menthe to taste (alternately peppermint essence and green food colouring, is a much cheaper if you don't have random liqueurs lying around)! Spur of the moment alcoholic-y minty chocolate-y goodness!