Fudge

Nine chocolate cupcakes in a presentation box. What could be a better birthday cake for a grown man? Nine chocolate cupcakes with chocolate fudge icing in a presentation box, that's what.

When making vanilla cupcakes I generally stick to an extremely light vanilla buttercream but I have never really been convinced by the chocolate version. Somehow the deeper flavour of the chocolate cupcakes calls for something more substantial than the buttercream and more dense than glace icing.

I've written before about childhood memories of bread being baked. Cakes were also a regular treat. My father has a sweet tooth and every weekend my mother would bake a cake. Her bible for such things was a Kate Stewart cookbook and once this had been discovered the norm was for a chocolate or coffee sponge, with fudge icing. I can clearly remember the taste of both, despite not generally being drawn to sweet food myself.

It was the icing that did it. I recently tried the chocolate sponge recipe and found it heavy compared to my usual recipe (although spectacular for a chocolate sponge pudding). But it was the icing that had really stuck in my mind. Butter, caster sugar and a little water brought gently to the boil then poured over icing sugar and cocoa, beaten smooth and then stirred regularly as it cooled and thickened. It would thicken quickly, the top of the mix forming a crust which could then be beaten back in, until the texture of the whole mix became densely spreadable. Spread across the base sponge, put the top on, then leave to set to a thick fudge filling.

So it was this icing I used on the birthday cupcakes, and it worked a dream. The set icing has a beautiful glossy finish which I simply did not know about as it was always hidden in the middle of the cake in my childhood. It was thick and (unsurprisingly) fudgy, densely chocolatey and complemented the cakes beautifully. A palpable hit.

So many cakes these days make a point of using nothing but the finest chocolate but this icing is a reminder that sometimes a good quality cocoa is every bit as luxurious.