Baby shower cupcakes

Last Friday at work they threw a baby shower for my colleague, who as you might have guessed, is having a baby girl! Of course that meant the cupcakes had to be pink! I totally forgot I was going to make cupcakes until the night before! So without a lot of time after work, I decided to just simply do a pink strawberry icing with a chocolate cupcake. If I had more time I would have been a bit more creative!
I got smaller pink cupcake cases, which totally lost their colour while baking. Oh well, it made the icing more of a focus! I used this chocolate cupcake recipe in my last post, and this time it still made 24 cupcakes, but they were a smaller size than normal cupcakes. Both the cupcake recipe, and the buttercream recipe come from the book Divine Cupcakes by Tamara Jane. I halved the icing, which didn't quite cover all 24 cupcakes, and I added natural strawberry essence for the flavour.
 
Chocolate Cupcakes:

• 430g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 250ml hot water
• 100g cocoa
• 250ml cold water
• 200g unsalted butter, softened
• 560g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 teaspoons vanilla essence
• Makes 36

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line three 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake papers.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl whisk together the hot water and cocoa until you have a smooth paste. Add the cold water and whisk until evenly combined.
3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter for 1-2 minutes. Add the caster sugar and two of the eggs. Beat until light. Add the last two eggs one at a time, beating until well combined, then stir in the vanilla essence. Add half of the flour to the creamed mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Add half of the cocoa mixture and beat until combined. Repeat this process but do not over-beat as this will toughen the mixture.
4. Divide the mixture between the cupcake papers. They should be about half-full as this mixture rises substantially. Bake for 25 minutes or until springy when pressed in the centre.
5. Cool cupcakes in the muffin trays for 5 minutes before removing the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

• 200g unsalted butter, softened
• 125ml milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla essence
• 2kg icing sugar, sifted

1. Cream the butter for 1-2 minutes. Add the milk, vanilla, and half of the icing sugar. Beat for atleast 3 minutes, or until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the remaining icing sugar, and beat for another three minutes, or until the mixture is of a spreadable consistency.
2. Add in your food colouring until it is the colour you want, and the essence until you get the flavour you want.