Swirly Chocolate Cupcakes

My husband would live off very few ingredients if he could.  He is a man who, I'm sure, would quite happily have the same three meals day in day out.  When we first started dating he ate poached eggs on toast every day for breakfast and either pasta with cheese and grilled chicken smothered in mustard, or mushroom stroganoff, for tea.  Neither of which I was (or am) particularly keen on... something had to change!  Anyway, very quickly we varied the meals, but I can still rarely get him to eat any other flavoured cakes than chocolate, the old staple.  So, chocolate cupcakes it is, with a pretty, twisty, top.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Cakes
100g plain flour
21/2 tbs cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
11/2 tsp baking powder
40g butter (or like me, olive spread... I just rarely get butter in!)
120ml whole milk
1 egg (I use large)
1tsp vanilla extract

• Line the cupcake tray with cases.

• Put the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, butter, 60mls of milk, egg and vanilla extract into a bowl, and beat well with an electric whisk.
• When smooth, add the remaining milk, scrape the sides and whisk again until fully incorporated.
• Either spoon from the bowl, or poor the mixture into a jug (it is quite runny) and pour straight into the cupcake cases.  Fill each case about 2/3rds.
• Cook for about 15mins on 150'c (fan oven), or until a skewer, inserted through the middle of one of the cupcakes, comes out clear.
• Cool in the tin for about 5mins before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing
300g icing sugar
100g butter (yep, I used olive spread again)
1/2tsp vanilla extract
2tbs whole milk
1tbs cocoa powder

• Put the icing sugar, butter, vanilla extract and whole milk into a bowl, beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
• Take out half the icing, put it into a clean bowl with the cocoa powder, beat until smooth.
• Using separate spoons, spoon alternating icings into a piping bag with nozzle.
• Squeeze out the icing into a swirly pattern onto each cooled cupcake.

Super.  Actually, I halved the icing quantity when making my cakes as I never usually bother with piping, subsequently, half of my cakes are un-iced, boo, luckily 'O' is not quite so fussy with sweet as he is with savoury, so I'm pretty sure he'll eat those without noticing there is icing missing!