White Chocolate Mud Cupcakes

This week's cupcakes were quite a long time in the making - and very much required. You might have heard about the storms that battered Perth last Monday - it made it onto the CNN news, among other sources - which caused, via about thirty litres of water, my ceiling to end up on my floor in 3 rooms. So. My carpet has been ripped up, I have the (dry) contents of said rooms stacked up in my kitchen, and I have had builders around every day this week. That on top of working 75 hour weeks means that cupcakes are a) hard to find the time to make, but b) very much needed!

I originally intended to make a sour cream white chocolate SMBC, but I couldn't get the darn stuff to thicken. Turns out you can't use sour cream as a substitute for butter in SMBC! So I used the leftover swiss meringue to make a fluffy topping, and piped over the rest of the chocolate mixed with the sour cream. I was not impressed - but they still ended up tasting delicious. And they even stayed moist for 36 hours!

White Chocolate Mud Cupcakes - from Exclusively Food

You will need:

For the Cupcakes: (Makes 12)
225g white chocolate
150gbutter
3/4 C milk
1/2 C caster sugar
2 teaspoons (10ml) vanilla extract
2 smallish eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 C self-raising flour
3/4 C plain flour

For the Fluff:
2 egg whites
1/3 C brown sugar

For the White Chocolate Swirl:
2 Tbsp sour cream
100 g white chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Celsius fan-forced).
2. Line a 12 hole cupcake pan with patty pans.
3. Place chocolate, butter, milk and sugar in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. Remove from heat when chocolate and butter have melted, and stir mixture until completely smooth. Allow mixture to cool at room temperature for 15 minutes.
4. Add vanilla and eggs to chocolate mixture and stir until well combined.
5. Stir flours together in a large bowl. Add one cup of chocolate mixture to the flour and stir until a smooth paste forms.
6. Add remaining chocolate mixture and stir until mixture is smooth. This gradual method of combining the wet and dry ingredients helps prevent lumps.
7. Pour mixture into cupcake tin.
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool before frosting.

For the Fluff (this is just Swiss Meringue!):

1. Over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together egg whites and sugar until the mixture is hot (72 C) and frothy. This usually takes quite a while - 8-10 minutes.
   
2. Using an electric beater, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and mix is cool.
3. Pipe or spread mixture onto cupcakes.

For the White Chocolate Swirl:

1. Stirring frequently, microwave the white chocolate and sour cream together in a bowl on medium in 30 second bursts until mixture is melted and homogenized.
2. Pipe the mixture over the top of the fluff on the cupcakes.