Choc-Peppermint Cake and Cupcakes

Peppermint isn't exactly my favourite flavour but with chocolate it's not so bad. Chocolate makes everything better really! I made this cake for a work friends birthday and wasn't around for the cutting of it hence no inside photos :( 

I used XXX Mints to flavour the icing and I put choc bits in it to give it a kind of choc-chip look, so I promise that's what the black bits are, not cake crumbs.

The chocolate cake recipe I used was one that has oil and vinegar instead of milk, butter and eggs. A bit different but I thought I would give it a go. The result was a dark moist chocolate cake and although there is 2 cups of sugar in it (!) not overly sweet (I think the cocoa has something to do with that). 

I decided to whip up some cupcakes and mini cupcakes as the recipe was quite large and my cake was small. They didn't take long to cook and came up beautifully!

Choc-Peppermint Cake

Recipe adapted from About.com

What you will need

2 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup corn flour
2 cups caster sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tsp baking soda
10 tbsp cocoa
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup oil
2 tbsp vinegar
2 cups cold water

2 cups icing sugar
250g butter, room temperature
1 packet of XXX mints
Green food colouring
1/2 packet Choc Thins
Crushed Flakes for decoration

What you will need to do

Preheat oven to 180*C and prepare your tins and trays. I used one 4 inch mini springform cake tin, 20 cupcake papers and 24 mini cupcake papers but you could just make one large slab cake if preferred.

Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl. In a separate bowl place the vanilla, oil, vinegar and water. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix slowly until combined. Once combined, beat mixture until smooth. Fill cake tin and cupcakes 3/4 full. Bake cake for about 30-40 minutes until top springs back when touched. The cupcakes will take around 20-30 minutes and the mini cupcakes will only take about 8minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool. Meanwhile to make the icing, beat the icing sugar and butter together until light and creamy. Crush about 4 XXX mints until powdery and add the the icing. You can add more mints depending on how strong you want the flavour. Add a drop of green food colouring and beat. Add as much or as little until you reach your desired shade of green. Add the Choc Thins and mix until combined.

When the cake has cooled, slice into two halves. Place a dollop of icing on one half and spread it out. Place the other half of the cake on top and cover with icing. Place crushed Flakes on top for decoration. For the cupcakes, simply place remaining icing into a piping bag fitted with a round tip and pipe onto tops. You can sprinkle with some extra Choc Thins for decoration.