Coca-Cola Cupcake & Nigella Lawson

coca-cola cupcake, vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting topped with coca-cola bubble sugar

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It's been nine years since Nigella Lawson's "How to be a domestic goddess" hit the shelves, I thought it was time to revisit this classic baking volume that had us all seeking our own inner domestic goddess.  

In my opinion this is best of all the Nigella books with a plethora of cake, biscuit (cookie), pie and chocolate recipes. Most aren't posh, we are talking comfort food here; banana bread, plum cake, sponge to loaf cakes, pancakes, pizza, breads, cheesecakes, tarts, jam & jellies are amongst the fabulous pages. 

Yum, how about Lemon-Syrup Loaf cake or today's slightly bizarre Coca-Cola cupcakes... moist, light chocolate cakes that leave a little tingle on your tongue. 

Coca-Cola Cake page 232

I got 18 medium sized cupcakes from this batter.

I did sift the bicarb (baking soda) and flour together before commencing.

Ingredients

200g (7oz) plain flour 

*250g (8.8oz) golden caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

125ml (4.2 Fluid oz) buttermilk (or 30g/1oz yoghurt mixed with 100ml/3.3 Fluid oz of semi-skimmed milk) 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

125g (4.4oz) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

175ml (6 fluid oz) Coca-Cola

Icing

225g (8oz) icing sugar (confectioners sugar)

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons of Coca-Cola

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (essence) 

Method

Preheat oven to 180C (350F)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Beat the egg, buttermilk (or substitute) and vanilla together in a mixing jug. In a heavy saucepan melt the butter, cocoa and Coca-Cola, heating it gently. Pour onto the dry ingredients, stir well with a wooden spoon, and then add the liquid ingredients from the jug, beating until well blended. 

Divide between your cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Ice with Nigella's Coca-Cola icing (recipe below) or your own frosting of choice, try chocolate, vanilla or how about cherry for a cherry coke ;)

Icing Method

Sift the icing sugar and set aside. In a heavy based pan heat, add the butter, Coca-Cola & cocoa and stir over low heat until the butter has melted. Remove from heat and stir in the icing sugar beating as you go until you have a good spreadable, but still slightly runny icing. Ice cupcakes. 

Now, just one point... this is a British book with British ingredients, my version is in metric if your looking for an American weights/measure version please read the Amazon reviews first as there seems to be varying opinions about how the book has been converted. 

*Golden caster sugar is sold in Australia as Raw caster sugar... elsewhere you can replace the caster sugar for the same weight of white sugar or raw sugar for equally pleasing results.

Want to make the white frosting? This is the same white chocolate vanilla swiss meringue butter cream frosting I used for the pink pocky stick cupcakes (below)... follow those instructions omitting the pink food colour and strawberry extract... instead add a few drops of white food colour. 

              Frosting

Happy Baking :)