Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

Submitted by Lisa Connelly

"A Nigella Lawson recipe that always has people asking for more - even people who don't normally eat chocolate cakes. Very morish. Use the best jam you can afford. If you use a relatively cheap jam, it'll probably be sweeter so use less sugar. You could also try adding a splash of kirsch to the batter and icing if you so desire. Very easy to make too."

 

• Ready In: 55mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 12

ingredients

• 125 g soft unsalted butter
• 100 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 300 g morello cherry jam
• 150 g caster sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 150 g self-raising flour

• FOR THE ICING

• 100 g dark chocolate
• 100 ml double cream
• 12 natural coloured glace cherries

directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan.
3. When it's nearly comletely melted, stir in the chocolate.
4. Leave it for a moment to begin softening, then take the pan off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and chocolate are smooth and melted.
5. Now add the cherry jam, sugar, salt and eggs.
6. Stir with a wooden spoon and when all is pretty well amalgamated stir in the flour.
7. Scrape and pour into the muffin papers standing in a muffin tin and bake for 25 minutes.
8. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out.
9. When the cupcakes are cool, break the chocolate for the icing into little piecesand add them to the cream in a saucepan.
10. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and whisk the mixture either by hand, or with an electric mixer till it's thick and smooth.
11. Ice the cakes with a spoon and put a cherry on the centre of each cake.