Cupcakes Part 2 - Dino Rocks

The second recipe in the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook is for Dinosaur Rock Cupcakes, so named because they are decorated with colourful buttercream icing and decorated with "dinosaur rock candy" and sold to little boys on their birthday.

This is a real crowd-pleaser recipe. The cupcakes were light and fluffy but still moist. And who doesn't like chocolate cake? They are made with cocoa rather than real chocolate, so there's a good chance you'd have everything you need in the pantry to begin with. I used Cadbury cocoa but next time I would splash out on some good stuff as even with a cup of cocoa in the batter they still didn't taste overly chocolate-y (but maybe that's always the case when you use cocoa instead of actual chocolate).

DS 7, who incidentally doesn't usually like chocolate cake, was a big fan of these.

For the technical stuff, I cooked them at 180 degrees (centigrade) for 20 mins. Instead of the gaudy coloured buttercream I iced them with a choc glaze:

Choc Glaze Icing

2 cups icing sugar

2 tblsp cocoa

sift together and whisk in boiling water in a steady stream until you reach the desired consistency, you will want it a bit runny. This is a setting glaze so you will need to work quick!

Makes 24, as the recipe states.