Ingredients
- For the icing, you’ll need:
- 3 eggs
- A 200 gram bar of white chocolate
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup margarine or butter (I used margarine in this)
- 11 About 11 mint leaves thinly sliced or chopped very small.
- 2 cups of flour
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- A 200 gram bar of white chocolate
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 1/4 cup margarine or butter (I used margarine)
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 egg whites.
Preparation
Step 1
1. Separate the eggs. Then beat the egg whites until they reach soft peak stage, then add the egg yolks, and beat until thoroughly mixed and frothy.
2. Beak the white chocolate into little pieces. Then, in a double boiler, or (as I did), in a heatproof bowl over boiling water, melt together the white chocolate, sugar, margarine and mint leaves. Keep stirring the mixture over heat for 10-15 minutes until all the chocolate has melted (and then a few minutes after that) and don’t worry if the fat/oil starts to separate from the rest. Just keep stirring it together. Then take the mixture off the heat and beat it for a couple of minutes to mix everything together thoroughly and introduce some air to the mixture.
3. Slowly (about a dessertspoon at a time) add and thoroughly mix about half the beaten egg into the chocolate mixture.
4. Sift the flour and salt together three times, and then (on the fourth sifting) sift into the chocolate/egg mixture.
5. Fold in the flour along with the rest of the egg and the vanilla.
6. Spoon into a tray lined with cupcake liners and bake on gas mark 5 for about 20 minutes. (NOTE – this is what I did and it worked, though next time, I might try them on a lower heat for slightly longer time as these were very brown by the time they’d cooked through).
7. When baked, leave on a cooling rack to cool and then ice.
To Make the Icing:
1. Break the white chocolate up into small pieces and then melt. As this is melting, place the icing sugar, margarine, milk and vanilla into a pan and stir together until the margarine has melted and the mixture thoroughly combined.
2. Add the melted chocolate to the warm icing sugar mixture and whisk together.
3. Beat egg whites in a separate bowl until they reach soft-to-medium peak.
4. Bring the chocolate/icing sugar mixture to the boil, remove from heat and SLOWLY drizzle over the egg whites, beating continuously (I don’t have a food processor, but managed to do this with a handheld mixer in one hand and the saucepan with the chocolate mixture in the other).
5. Once all the chocolate mixture has been added, keep beating as the mixture cools. Once it is warm, alternate leaving it in the fridge to cool further, for about 20 minutes at a time, and beating the mixture until it has reached a good consistency for piping.
6. Give the mixture one last beat with the mixer and then pipe or spread with a knife onto cupcakes.
7. Decorate with a mint leaf, or two, if you like!