Weekend Cupcakes And Cakes

Haryo had a summer party at his penthouse on Saturday, and I decided to bring some goodies along. Since I'd had a pretty busy week, I didn't want to faff around with something that required too much preparation. So I decided to make the dark chocolate and cherry cupcakes I'd made for the Mancreature's birthday last month.

On a taste per effort ratio, this recipe is a clear winner. All you have to do is stir all the ingredients together before bunging them in the oven. If anything, making the chocolate icing seems to take the most time.

The recipe says it makes 12 cupcakes, but Nigella must have some seriously DD-cup patty pans. I doubled the quantities and ended up with 46 cupcakes - almost twice what I was supposed to have! And as luck would have it, I ran out of chocolate icing after covering about two-thirds of the cupcakes, so had to conjure something up to ice the rest.

This is what happens when I try to conjure up some icing - fluorescent pink icing. I added some fresh lime juice to it for taste, and some rosewater for, erm, nice smells.

I forgot to take a photo of the cupcakes with the chocolate icing, and the Mancreature tripped while carrying them up the bus anyway, which resulted in some fairly smooshed icing.

Haryo supplied the cupcake patterned tray.

Mine weren't the only baked good at the party. Haryo's friend Rika made this fantastic cake as well. I'm not sure what it's called or what else is in it except for chocolate, but dang, it was tasty!