Home at last! and now I am able to borrow my mother-in-law’s lovely normal well-equipped kitchen with a huge (comparatively) temperature-controlled oven and more surface space than I could dream of.

I have been searching for the perfect transatlantic fairycake/cupcake combination recipe for a long time. One that will make lovely perky little cakes for fairycake size paper cases but that will have a good strong flavour and be smooth enough to ice.

British fairy cakes tend to be quite bland in taste and light in texture while American cupcakes are strong in taste but heavier in texture. I have tried various recipes from both sides of the pond and at last I have come upon the perfect recipe. It is a Nigella Lawson recipe which surprised me as I am not normally a huge fan but these Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes are just gorgeous.

for the cupcakes:

125g Soft unsalted Butter
100g Dark Chocolate, broken into pieces
300g Morello Cherry Jam
150g Caster Sugar
Pinch of Salt
2 Large Eggs, beaten
150g Self Raising Flour
12 Bun Muffin tin and papers

For the Icing

100g Dark Chocolate
100ml Double Cream
12 Natural Coloured Glace Cherries

Preheat the oven to 180oC/Gas Mark 4

Put the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan on the heat to melt. When nearly completely melted stir in the chocolate. Leave for a moment to begin softening, then take the pan off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and the chocolate are smooth and melted, now add the cherry jam, sugar salt and eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon and when all is pretty well amalgamated stir in the flour.

Scrape and pour into the muffin papers in their tin and bake for 25 pans. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out.

When the cupcakes are cool break the chocolate for the icing into little pieces and add them to the cream in the saucepan. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and then whisk – by hand or electrically until thick and smooth. Ice the cupcakes, smoothing the tops with the back of a spoon and stand a cherry in each.

Makes 12

I actually found that it made 20 cakes because I was using british cake papers not muffin papers. The cakes are to die for, particularly as the cherries give them a slight chewyness, and using real chocolate in the cake mixture makes them very rich.

I didnt use the icing recipe listed here. I used one from a book I have just bought called ‘More from Magnolia’ from the Magnolia Bakery in New York coloured them with food colouring and decorated them with bits I found in Tesco’s. Da-da! American-style fairycakes

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