You Can't Polish A Turd, But You Can Cover It In Sprinkles.

You know that scene in The Vicar of Dibley where she sticks her head in the chocolate fountain. Yeah? THAT. These bad boys aren't quite there, but they're pretty damn close.



Ingredients

125g Dark Chocolate
125g Margarine (Stork)
125g Icing Sugar
6 Large Eggs
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
100g Granulated Sugar
125g Plain flour

&  Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Chocolate Fudge Icing

You'll also need a muffin tin and muffin cases.



Preheat your oven to 190C.

Melt the dark chocolate by popping it in the microwave in a suitable bowl (I use pyrex) for short bursts of time. You really need to keep an eye on it or it could burn, and no one wants that. Once its all deliciously silky and liquified resist the urge to dip your fingers in there and leave it on the side to cool down.

In a large bowl beat the butter till smooth (medium speed on an electric mixer, or a wooden spoon and a lot of welly!). Add the icing sugar to the butter, fold it in a couple of times carefully with a spoon or rubber ended spatular then beat/whisk (low speed for all you electric folk) till it turns light and fluffy.

This next bit makes me feel like a bloody awesome Domestic Goddess ...

You've gotta add the egg yolks to the butter/sugar mixture but keep the egg whites separate. I find the easiest way of doing this is to grab another large bowl, crack an egg gently on the rim and then break it into your cupped hand with your fingers ever so slightly apart, the egg white slips into the bowl and the yolk remains in your hand. Sounds tricky but I promise its not. If you're really struggling or don't fancy using your hands then check out this video. Anyway, I add 3 yolks and mix, then the other 3 and mix again. Now add your chocolate gooeyness and the vanilla extract and mix it all together.

Put that deliciousness to one side, clean off your mixing apparatus and head over to your big bowl of egg whites. Add the granulated sugar and get mixing. You want the mixer set on a high speed for this, and if you're using a hand whisk then you might want to shot a redbull or something before you start. It'll take a while but keep going until the whites form soft shiny peaks. If you can turn the bowl upside down without anything shifting you've got it spot on. Don't over beat or you'll loose all the air, the cakes won't rise properly and are likely to be pretty dense and heavy.

Spoon about a fourth of the whites into the butter/sugar/chocolate/egg/vanilla mixture and stir this in fully with a rubber spatular or spoon. Add the remaining egg whites and fold in carefully. Don't mix fully, leave a few wisps of white, sift half the flour into the bowl, fold a little again, sift the other half and fold once more. Everything should now be completely integrated into a wonderfully light mixture.

When filling your muffin cases you only want to go three-quarters, not the top, and make sure you level out the mixture or your cakes might rise wonky.

Bake for 15 minutes or so, and check by putting a toothpick into the centre of a cake, if it comes out clean those bad boys are ready!

Let them cool in the tin for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool of completely.

Now these cakes work great with a standard vanilla butter cream frosting, however for those of us craving a coco covered smack in the face rather than a light tickle I suggest the following:

Reach for the Betty Crocker and get piping.

Adapted and converted from this wonderful recipe by Kat Suletzki.

Check out her blog www.cupofsugarpinchofsalt.com for a plethora of mouthwatering recipes.