Chocolate Ginger Cupcakes with Two Toppings

Chocolate Ginger Cupcake with Whipped Cream and French Meringue

With Easter coming early this year and traveling part of March, I haven't posted as many entries as I had planned on, but I wanted one more before this month comes to an end. I am disappointed that I missed the Daring Bakers' challenge this month hosted by Morven of FoodArtandRandomThoughts. Check out all their beautiful party cakes! The recipe for the perfect party cake comes from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours.

I have had fun making cupcakes lately, but I think this will be my last post on them for a while. The two little cakes here have one thing in common in that the batter, a spicy ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg blend with chopped dark chocolate stirred in, is the same, but the toppings are entirely different so that each cake stands alone. For a dessert buffet, make two batches of the cake recipe. Top one batch with the Whipped Cream Toffee Topping and the other batch with the Whipped Cream and French Meringues. The meringues are delicious served on their own, too.






















Chocolate Ginger Cupcake with Whipped Cream and Toffee Topping

Chocolate Ginger Cake

Ingredients

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup self-rising flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 egg
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons honey
2 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 325° F. Line a Texas size (6 ) or a standard cupcake(12) tin with paper baking cups. Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add butter, egg, buttermilk and honey, beat mixture with a electric hand mixer on low speed until ingredients are combined. Increase speed until mixture has changed to a paler color. Stir in chocolate. Divide mixture among baking cups, smooth surface.

Bake large cupcakes about 40 minutes, small cakes about 30 minutes. Turn onto wire rack to cool.

Whipped Cream and Toffee Topping
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
6 ounces chocolate-covered toffee bars(such as Heath or Skor), coarsely chopped

When cakes have cooled, spread tops with whipped cream, then top with chopped toffee bars.

Whipped Cream and French Meringue Topping

When cakes have cooled, spread with whipped cream and carefully top with meringue. A fresh berry is all you need to complete the decoration.

French Meringue

This recipe from Allrecipes in one of the best I have found for French Meringues. What's not written in the recipe instructions, but hidden in the reviews section is that you have to beat the egg white and sugar mixture for 15-20 minutes for it to reach the stiff peak stage.



French Meringues