Chocolate chip cupcakes with chocolate buttercream icing

I made these cupcakes for a trip to Blackpool zoo last week, I thought they would be a perfect edition to the picnic we were going to have. Now whenever I make cupcakes my "go to" recipe is Nigella's fairy cake one from How to be a domestic goddess, I always use this as my basic recipe and then add any additional flavours I need to, however it's also great as a vanilla cupcake recipe. The cupcakes are also moist and full of flavour and they have yet to let me down (I'm touching wood as I type this!!!)

Here's the  mixture waiting to be put into cupcake cases:

and here it is in the cases ready to go into the oven:

Out of the oven and cooling on the rack:

The cases were on the small side either though they were labelled as cupcake cases and in my opinion they were closer to fairy cakes but this did not make any difference to the finished product or the taste of it.

For the chocolate buttercream recipe I went for the one I frequently use from cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery . I do however change the chocolate I use from dark as stated in the book to milk, for some reason I just cannot get into using dark chocolate for cooking I would rather use a good quality milk chocolate. I think the reason I do this is because I am frightened of the dark chocolate being too overpowering and not sweet enough. Anyway here are the finished chocolate chip cupcakes with their chocolate buttercream icing on.

Chocolate chip cupcakes

(slightly adapted from 'fairy cakes' out of Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess page39)

Ingredients

I got 15 small cupcake size cakes from this recipe

125g unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

2 large eggs

125g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons milk

100g milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/gas mark 6.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy.

3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg is added. Then add the vanilla extract.

4. Sift the self raising flour into the bowl and then fold the flour into the mixture.

5. Add the milk to the mixture although if you feel the mixture looks wet enough you can leave this step out.

6. Add the milk chocolate chips to the bowl and fold in, trying to distribute the chocolate chips as evenly as you can.

7. Place the mixture into cupcake cases and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cakes are cooked through and golden on top.

Chocolate buttercream icing

(slighly adapted from cupcakes at the Primrose Bakery)

Enough to ice the 15 cupcakes from above

Ingredients

100g good quality milk chocolate

150g unsalted butter

1/2 to 1 tablespoon of milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

175g icing sugar

1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl in the microwave until it is smooth and has a pouring consistency. Keep your eye on the chocolate as it can burn so easily - I usually heat in thirty second intervals and check and stir after each thirty seconds.

2. In a large mixing bowl beat the butter, milk, vanilla and icing sugar with a hand held electric mixer until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and beat again until thick and creamy. If the mixture looks too runny to ice your cupcakes, beat for a little longer and this should thicken it.

3. Ice your cupcakes however you would like to. I used a Wilton 1m nozzle to do the ones above.