Once the season veers towards autumn, ginger cake becomes most appealing. These ginger and chocolate cupcakes are a lighter version of gingerbread with a lemony tang and fragrant aroma. You’ll find them a sweet and spicy bite with the added depth of chocolate.
I don’t know why, but I really fancied baking something with my marrow and ginger jam yesterday. Well jam is probably pushing it as it’s more like sauce.
It was a friend’s birthday and as it’s National Cupcake Week, I thought I’d better bake some for her. I adapted a primrose bakery recipe for ginger cupcakes, altering the quantities, using ginger and marrow jam instead of stem ginger and adding bits of chocolate. I also thought this would be a good opportunity to, err, have another go at piping – deep breath, gritted teeth …
Ginger Chocolate Cupcakes
Well, my piping skills obviously need some improvement, but I was reasonably pleased with these ginger chocolate cupcakes. I didn’t break the bag or shoot the nozzle out of the end for a start. That’s got to be progress.
I tried total coverage as well as just a whirl in the middle to see which I liked best. Both CT and I felt that full coverage gave the best effect.
These ginger chocolate cupcakes have a delicious gingerbread taste, but with a lighter texture and the ginger isn’t too strong. Combined with the lemony tang from the ginger and marrow jam, the fragrant aroma and chocolate nuggets, they’re real winners and I shall be making them again for sure.
Just as well I was giving this batch away or I might have polished off quite a few of them. That was my friend’s avowed intention anyway.
No Marrow & Ginger Jam?
If you don’t have a cupboard full of marrow and ginger jam like I do, don’t panic. You can use a jar of stem ginger along with some of its syrup instead. Add a little grated lemon zest and you’re done. Lemon marmalade could work as an alternative too.
Other Ginger Recipes You Might Like
- Cornish fairings
- Gingerbread hot chocolate
- Gingered pear almond honey cakes
- Lemon & ginger mincemeat
- Oaty ginger chocolate chip cookies
- Sticky ginger apple cakes
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these ginger chocolate cupcakes, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more cupcake recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.
Choclette x
Ginger Chocolate Cupcakes. PIN IT.
Ginger Chocolate Cupcakes – The Recipe
Ginger Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cakes
- 125 g unsalted butter
- 125 g molasses sugar
- 1 tbsp treacle
- 75 ml sour milk
- 1 large egg (I used a duck egg)
- 2 tbsp marrow and ginger jam
- 180 g flour (half wholemeal, half white)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- pinch sea salt
- 50 g spicy orange dark chocolate roughly chopped
Buttercream
- 125 g unsalted butter
- 250 g icing sugar sieved
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 3 tbsp syrup from the marrow and ginger jam
- 12 pieces crystallised ginger (optional)
- 20 g spicy orange dark chocolate (optional) chopped for sprinkling on top
Instructions
Cakes
- Melt butter in a large pan together with the sugar and treacle.
- Allow to cool a little whilst getting on with weighing the flour and chopping the chocolate.
- Mix in sour milk and stir until smooth.
- Beat in the egg.
- Stir in the marrow and ginger jam.
- Sift in the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
- Stir in the chocolate.
- Spoon mixture into 12 cupcake cases, drop 2 pieces of chocolate on each one and bake at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for 20 minutes.
- Turn out onto a rack and leave to cool.
Buttercream
- Cream butter with icing sugar until almost white.
- Beat in 2 tsp lemon juice and the jam syrup.
- Spoon into a piping bag and using a star nozzle pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes.
- Decorate with ginger and chopped chocolate if desired.
Maya Russell says
I’ve never had ginger cupcakes before. I love gingerbread and ginger biscuits covered in chocolate so these look good.
BeadBag says
this recipe looks terrific.
Shirley R.
Johanna GGG says
these look lovely – I can’t master the whole piping business and I find it adds so much icing to the cake that I am loathe to do it unless necessary – but it does look pretty when done well
celia says
Ooh, they do look good, thanks Choc! We’re going through a ginger phase at the moment – we’ve just got hooked on Rochester Ginger Drink!
Choclette says
Kim – thank you. Good tip about how much piping to do depending on quantity. I can’t remember where I picked up the cupcake cases, but the make is “Easybake”.
MCB – you are right, I’m seeing ginger all over the net. Eating ginger loaf by the sea sounds fab.
CityHippy – thank you.
CC – hard to imagine, but glad you’re on board now 😉
the caked crusader says
How lovely – chocolate and ginger is a combination I’ve really grown to love; I didn’t like it at all when I was younger.
cityhippyfarmgirl says
Beautiful! They look gorgeous.
MissCakeBaker says
It is definitely ginger season – I had some lovely stem ginger loaf yesterday by the sea. The piping looks v good!
Kim says
Mmmmm, ginger is one of my all time favourite things! These look lovely and the piping looks fab! I love the decoration, too. I’m always chopping and changing between full cover piping and little swirls in the middle, it usually depends how much buttercream I’ve got; it’s a right pain to run out before they’re all done! Cute cases too, where are they from?
Choclette says
Jo – thank you. It always gives me a thrill when someone says one of my cakes looks elegant – it so isn’t me 😉 Fashion in cakes may not be your thing, but you’re right up there on the bread front.
Karen – he he, have fun with those marrows! Where would we be without spices, it’s hard to imagine food now with none of my favourites ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and chilli.
Chele – thank you. I think it’s the piping bags themselves I really need practice with.
C – thank you. Yes, I’ve only had successes with Primrose Bakery recipes so far. So you’ve not come down on one side or the other re centre swirl or complete swirl?
Janice – you say the nicest things.
Hazel – thank you and thanks for pointing out baking powder omission -now rectified.
Dom – The ginger must be a reflection of our need to warm ourselves up in all these autumnal gales. When it comes to decorating, mostly I just find it a faff and really, when it comes down to it, I like a cake to look home made.
Dom at Belleau Kitchen says
So much ginger doing the rounds at the moment but I think these beat them all hands down! I live your icing too. I keep promising myself to learn how to ice stuff. One day…
tea with hazel says
love the sound and look of these..i’d love to try them..by the way how much baking powder did you use?
Janice says
Just perfect!
C says
They look fabulous – great piping and decoration. I know what you mean about total coverage vs swirl in the centre – I chop and change what I do.
I really like the Primrose Bakery cupcake recipes, I’ve had lots of success with them, and this looks like a great way of adapting the recipe!
Chele says
I don’t see anything wrong with your piping skills at all, they look perfect to me. Such wonderful looking cupcakes ;0)
Karen S Booth says
GINGER! I love ginger so any addition of it in chocolate cakes is a winner for me, and marrow and ginger jam is on my preserving menu this weekend after a kind neighbour left a rather large barrow of them on my doorstep before running away!
Those wee cakes look DELICIOUS ~ great photos.
Karen
Joanna @ Zeb Bakes says
How elegant! I am just coming to terms with cupcakes, I am usually so late in following trends that they have gone out of fashion and are tiptoeing back in by the time I get there. I like your piping!