Chocolate Cola Cupcakes

I think Nigella likes to put Cola in everything, hams, cakes you name it! These cakes really entice children as the thought of cake, cola and icing all together sounds too good to be true.

I used the Odlums recipe for these cakes, but instead of a two layered cake I made cupcakes instead. I didn't use the recommended icing either and instead made a chocolate buttercream from the Hummingbird Bakery as I thought it would be better for piping with. Together they are a match made in heaven. Rich, chocolately and very more-ish.

I made these for the Bake Sale I helped with a few weeks ago and decorated in a few different ways....

Smarter than the average bear

Fizzy cola bottles

Add some antlers and the bears magically turn into reindeer

Or how about some sugar paste flowers?

Chocolate Cola Cake - Adapted from Odlums 
I love the Odlums website, it so definitely retro but perfect for being so.


Ingredients
350g Odlums Self Raising Flour 
300g Caster Sugar 
3 heaped tablespoons Cocoa (sieved) 
Good pinch of Bread Soda 
225g Butter 
225ml Cola 
125ml Milk 
2 Eggs (beaten) 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees or 160 degrees fan.

Sieve flour, cocoa and bread soda into a bowl. 

Slowly melt butter in a saucepan with the cola. 

In a jug mix the eggs, milk and vanilla extract. 

Add the cola and milk mixtures to the dry ingredients. Mix throughly but gently. 

Use an ice-cream scoop to evenly distribute the batter between the bun cases. 

Bake for about 15 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. 

Allow to cool on a wire rack. 

Decorate to your hearts content. 

Chocolate Buttercream Icing - Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days

400g icing sugar

100g cocoa powder

160g unsalted butter

80ml whole milk

In the freestanding mixer, combine the butter, icing sugar and cocoa until and mix until sandy in texture. Add the milk and mix until smooth.


Decorations - 
I used sugarpaste for the reindeer / bear snouts, stamped out with the lid from the vodka bottle (the only reason I keep a bottle of vodka around!) Coloured with chesnut. The ears are a piece of chesnut fondant with a smaller piece of pink inside, shaped with boning tool. The eyes are also made from sugarpaste. I made the antlers with melted chocolate freehand, melt the chocolate, leave to cool slightly, pop into a freezer bag or piping bag and pipe out shapes onto a sheet of greaseproof paper. 
For the flowers, I stamped out coloured sugarpaste with a PME flower stamper. I then left them to harden in an egg box to give them shape. The leaves are cut free hand and shaped with a boning tool.