Strawberry Cupcakes with Chocolate Drizzle

1. Preheat the oven to 190℃ / Fan 170℃ / 375℉ / Gas 5. Place the muffin sized cases into the muffin tray. 2. Make the sponge. Place the soft butter and sugar into a good sized bowl and beat together with a wooden spoon or electric beaters until very pale and fluffy. Add the salt and vanilla extract and beat again to combine. Gradually add the beaten egg a little at a time, beating well after each addition, (see note b below). Beat in the milk. Sieve the flour into the mixture. Use a spatula, large metal spoon or your hand with your fingers splayed to fold this in gently. 3. Fill the muffin cases & bake. Using a teaspoon, fill the cases with the batter mixture. You’re aiming for them to be half to two-thirds full. You may decide to weigh each muffin to ensure equal sizes. Each will weigh about 63g. Place the muffin tray in the centre of the oven and bake for 20 – 23 minutes. You may need to rotate the tray after 15 minutes of baking. Once baked, remove from the oven and muffin tray and place onto a cooling rack. 4. Make the chocolate ganache. Pour the cream into a small pan and set over a medium heat. Allow the cream to heat through but avoid letting it boil. Meanwhile break the chocolate into small pieces. Place into a bowl. Pour the heated cream over the chocolate. Use a teaspoon to stir the ganache, gradually the chocolate will melt and the ganache will become smooth. Once the chocolate is completely melted and the ganache is smooth, set aside to cool and firm up.
5. Make the buttercream frosting. Place the softened butter into a good sized bowl. Beat to ensure it is soft and creamy. Sieve half of the icing sugar into the butter. Use a wooden spoon to combine the two ingredients. Sieve the remaining icing sugar into the bowl and beat to combine. Beat well to create a creamy frosting. Add the vanilla extract mix until well combined. Add a drizzle of milk as necessary until it is the softness you like. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle.6. Begin to decorate the cupcakes. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled pipe a swirl of frosting on top of each cake. Sit a strawberry ontop of the frosting. 7. Drizzle with chocolate. Spoon the cooled ganache into a piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle (see note d below). Drizzle the chocolate over each cupcake. 8. Enjoy!
Notes: a) When making the cupcake batter, consider weighing the cracked eggs first to ensure the batter has equal weight of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. Simply weigh the butter, sugar and flour to the same weight as the eggs. Of course the value may be slightly different to the 120g listed in the ingredients above. b) Consider warming your lightly beaten eggs over a bain marie especially if they feel particularly cold. Warm them until they feel lukewarm. This should help prevent the batter from curdling and produce a better cupcake sponge. c) If the chocolate ganache has firmed up a little too much when you’re ready to pipe it onto the cupcakes simply warm it through gently until it is the consistency you’re happy with. d)  Rather than using another disposable piping bag you may prefer to make a small piping cone with greaseproof paper.  Alternatively, drizzle the chocolate with a teaspoon. e)  Consider adding a handful of freeze dried strawberries to the batter.  Or once baked and cooled hollow the cupcakes out slightly and fill with a little strawberry jam before decorating.  f)  You’re likely to have a little ganache left over, this could be used for dipping any remaining strawberries.