Caramel Chocolate Easter Cupcakes

I was up in the loft locating the plastic eggs ready for an Easter egg hunt when I came across a box of Easter cake decorations that I had completely forgotten about. It was the perfect excuse to make some cakes and decorate them for Easter (obviously they will be eaten long before Easter though!)

I popped a caramel egg in the middle of the cakes as a nice surprise, although they could be left out, or replaced with a mini creme egg. I topped them with my all time favourite cream cheese & Nutella frosting, making these very indulgent and best eaten with a spoon!

Caramel Chocolate Easter Cupcakes - makes 10/12

cupcakes
100ml boiling water
5-10g Instant coffee granules (depending on how much coffee flavour you want them to have) - I used Beanies Caramel Coffee
35g Cocoa powder
190g Caster Sugar
115g Plain Flour
3/4 tsp Baking powder
3/4 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Egg
60ml Hazelnut oil
125ml Milk
Galaxy caramel mini eggs

Nutella frosting
300g Full fat cream cheese
150g Nutella

• Mix the boiling water, coffee and cocoa powder together until smooth
• Mix the sugar, flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda and salt together in a large bowl or jug
• Beat the egg, oil and milk together, add the chocolate mixture & beat well
• Beat the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well
• Pour the cake batter into the cupcake cups until just over half full
• Push a caramel egg gently into the centre of batter, making sure that it is covered by the mixture
• Bake in a 180 C oven for approx 18-20 minutes, until springy to the touch
• Allow the cakes to cool fully on a wire rack
• Make the frosting by beating the cream cheese & Nutella together
• Decorate the cupcakes with the frosting

This is my entry into the Beanies Easter Baking Challenge - to see other entries just follow the hashtag #BeaniesBakeOff on Twitter.

Beanies Coffee comes in a variety of flavours - our personal favourite is the French Vanilla and I look forward to trying the Cinnamon & Hazelnut.

I was sent jars of coffee for the purpose of this challenge