Michelle Darmody: Delicious chocolate and orange cupcakes
Chocolate marmalade cupcakes
It’s the season for Seville and blood oranges. Both have delicious uses in their own right, but it's the Seville ones that make the best marmalade. Getting a batch of them in my local fruit and veg shop inspired me to make a few recipes incorporating marmalade.
Marmalade combines the sweetness of jam with the bitterness of citrus peel, you do however simmer the whole oranges in water before making the marmalade which removes some of the bitter taste from the pith and peel. The tartness that is left is a wonderful contrast to the sugar. Seville oranges make great marmalade as they are high in pectin which helps the jelly around the peel to set beautifully.
Forms of quince marmalade are thought to have originated in Roman times but our more typical orange marmalade has its origins in Portugal. It can add pep to savoury cooking as well as baking. A glaze for a baked ham, a marinade for chicken, or salad dressings can all benefit from its addition.
Marmalade tends to be sold as either coarse or fine cut — you can blitz the marmalade to turn it into a paste which works well for the tarts. Ginger can be a nice inclusion: stir some finely chopped crystalised ginger through the marmalade before spooning it onto the tart pastry.
If you find the ganache a little rich for cupcakes you can beat it with a whisk once it is cool, to add some air. This will lighten the colour and texture but will also make it a little lighter to taste. Add orange zest to the ganache, when you are stirring in the chocolate, if you want to intensify the orange flavour.
150g soft butter
145g golden caster sugar
110g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
3 eggs, lightly beaten
3 tbs marmalade
100ml cream
100g good quality dark chocolate, broken into very small even-sized pieces
Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a 12-hole bun tin with cupcake cases.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs slowly, making sure to regularly scrape the sides of your bowl. Add in flour and cocoa powder and mix slowly until combined.
Scoop a small spoon of batter into the base of each cupcake case and make a small well in the centre. Spoon marmalade into the well at the centre and top it up with more batter, making sure the marmalade is well covered. Repeat this for all 12 cupcakes. Bake for about 15 minutes until the cupcakes have risen nicely and the batter is baked through. Once cool enough to handle place onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
To make the ganache icing heat the cream slowly in a heavy-based saucepan until it is shivering on top, just before it boils. Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate until melted. Set aside to cool to room temperature. It should be the consistency of butter.
Fill a piping bag with the ganache and pipe it on top of each cupcake.
225g plain flour
1 tsp ground ginger
140g cold butter, cubed
55g golden caster sugar
1 egg
5 tbs very fine cut or blitzed marmalade
Mix the flour and the ginger and rub in the butter, until it looks like rough breadcrumbs — do not over mix.
Stir the sugar into the egg, mix it lightly and add to the flour with a fork. Bring the pastry together with your hands then rest it for an hour in the fridge or overnight if you wish.
Grease and flour two bun tins enough for 18 tarts and preheat your oven to 170°C.
Roll the pastry to about 3 mm in thickness and cut out 18 circles to a size that neatly fits into your bun tin. Gently lay the discs into the prepared tins.
Spoon the marmalade into each disc leaving some room around the edges for it to spread as it melts. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden on top. Allow to cool in the tin until you can handle the pastry then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.
125g soft butter
90g muscovado sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
175g self-raising flour
4 tbs milk
3 tbs marmalade
the zest of 2 oranges
2 tbs fine-cut marmalade
Preheat your oven to 190°C and line a 2 lb loaf tin with parchment.
Beat the butter and sugar together until it is getting paler in colour. Slowly add the eggs one at a time. Add in the flour and combine completely. Stir in the milk, marmalade and zest until it is combined.
Scoop the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for about 35 minutes until it bakes through and a skewer comes out clean.
If you are making the glaze, gently heat the 2 tbs marmalade, before the end of baking, in a heavy-based saucepan. When you take the cake out of the oven, spoon the heated marmalade over it. Once cool enough to handle, remove it from a tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.
