Marble Cupcakes

I thought I'd do some more baking today. I think I'm starting to get obsessed...and I'm worried that I'm going to keep piling on weight! I gave some of these cupcakes to a neighbour though, maybe I should have told her to expect loads more in future!

Anyway, I haven't made marble cupcakes before, it wasn't too hard to do. Just the usual cupcake recipe. But divide the mixture in to two bowls and add cocoa powder to one. Simples.

Does anyone else make as much mess as I do?? I'm definitely not one of the 'tidy as you go' gals.

I put a spoonful of mixture in to the cases. I thought I'd be a bit different and do three starting with chocolate and three vanilla.

Then I added the opposite mixture on top. Easy peasy.

To get the marbled effect, I used a knife and just swished the mixture about a bit (I use such good descriptive words!), I had lots of mixture left over so baked more cupcakes. The second time around I used a cocktail stick and I found that this worked a lot better than the knife, the first batch just looked a bit too layered!

They only took 15 minutes, at 160°. My oven (it's a fan oven) always seems to cook quicker, even if I reduce the temperature by 20°. So I always check my cakes after 10 minutes, do the cocktail stick test and leave them a bit longer. I usually just guess.

I think they turned out pretty good. Not as marbled as I expected, but I think this is because the chocolate mixture seemed thicker than the vanilla. So maybe next time I will add a little bit of milk or something.

Iced, with butter cream. Chocolate for the vanilla ones, vanilla for the chocolate. Oh, I forgot to add. With the second batch, I added 3 layers instead of 2.

Added some sprinkles to some of them :)

VOILA!

Hayley xx