Milk Chocolate Cupcakes with Cardamom & Orange
You know how well orange and chocolate pair up? Well I can tell you that adding cardamom makes for an even better flavour combination. These cardamom & orange milk chocolate cupcakes are quite sensational. The sponge is lightly flavoured with chocolate and cardamom and has a good hit of orange. But the best bit is the milk chocolate icing on the cake. Literally!
Here is the first of the cupcake recipes I promised you from my Liskeard cupcake tour. Recently, I indulged in some cardamom milk chocolate. Oh boy! It was so delicious and worked so well, I just had to try it out in cake format.
Milk Chocolate Cupcakes with Cardamom & Orange
One of my favourite baking books is Nigella’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess*. She has a fabulous recipe for cappuccino cupcakes that I’ve made a few times. If you’re having a party, they pair really well with her espresso cupcakes. Anyway, I used the cappuccino recipe as a starting point for these milk chocolate cupcakes with cardamom & orange and then adapted it somewhat.
The process for making the sponge is a very simple one. Pretty much all you need to do is cream the butter and sugar together, beat in the eggs, then mix in the dry ingredients. The milk chocolate orange icing is a bit more complicated as you have to melt the chocolate first. Once you’ve done that bit though, the rest is a cinch. And that icing is just gorgeous.
I just knew these milk chocolate cupcakes with cardamom & orange were going to be delicious. And they were. As I’d hoped the flavours married beautifully together. The texture was good although not quite as light as the dark chilli chocolate cupcakes. The milk chocolate orange icing was so good I could have eaten the whole bowl. Luckily for those concerned, I managed to restrain myself.
The buttercream icing contains orange liqueur. If you’d rather not indulge in alcohol, however, then use some of the juice from the orange instead. I quite understand there are children about.
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Cardamom & Orange Chocolate Cupcakes. PIN IT.
Milk Chocolate Cupcakes – The Recipe
Milk Chocolate Cupcakes with Cardamom & Orange
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 125 g unsalted butter
- 125 g soft brown sugar
- 8 cardamom pods
- 1 orange - grated zest only
- 2 large eggs (I use duck eggs when I can get them)
- 125 g wholemeal flour (I used half wholemeal & half gluten-free)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 3 tbsp milk
- Milk chocolate orange icing
- 100 g milk chocolate (35-40%)
- 75 g unsalted butter
- 75 g icing sugar
- 1 tbsp orange liqueur
- 12 Minstrels (optional)
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Cream the butter and sugar together until pale in colour and fluffy in texture.
- Grind the seeds from the cardamom pods in a pestle & mortar, then beat into the butter mixture along with the orange zest.
- Beat in the eggs one after the other until thoroughly incorporated. If the mixture curdles, add a little of the flour until it comes together again.
- Sieve in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, chucking out any large bits of bran left in the sieve.
- Mix in the milk.
- Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake cases and bake in a preheated oven at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for 18-20 minutes.
Milk chocolate orange icing
- Whilst the cakes are cooking, make the icing.
- Melted the chocolate in a bain marie or bowl set over hot, but not boiling, water. Allow to cool slightly.
- Cream the butter and icing sugar until smooth and light.
- Beat in the chocolate followed by the orange liqueur.
- Swirl the icing over the cooled cupcakes with a spoon or pipe it on if you prefer. Decorate with a Minstrel if wished.
Notes
Update November 2009
Due to popular demand, I transformed these cupcakes into an orange and cardamom birthday cake. It was a great success.
Chele
25th October 2009 at 7:45 amHmmm – the jury is still out for me on the whole chocolate and cardamom flavour combo. I had a white choc and cardamom cheesecake at one of my fave bars / places to eat and it didn’t rock my world while everything else I have tried from there has. Might have to try these to see if it was just the cheesecake ….
Choclette
25th October 2009 at 7:45 pmI have to say cardamom in cheesecake doesn’t sound wonderful. The cupcakes proved popular, so might be worth trying it with a darker chocolate? Try the milk chocolate & cardamom 100g bar from M&S – I defy you not to like that!
Chocolate Shavings
27th October 2009 at 1:33 pmChocolate, orange and cardamom? Yum!
Kath
29th October 2009 at 9:10 amLove this combination, I was thinking about cooking a cardamom, coffee and chocolate cake that I spotted in the October issue of Olive for our Halloween party this weekend, the cupcakes are also tempting. Can you have too much chocolate cake?? What a silly question!
Choclette
29th October 2009 at 8:41 pmCan you have too much chocolate cake? It depends on how good the chocolate cake is!
cakeboule
16th January 2012 at 10:59 pmI just came across this one. I just made some cardamon and clementine shortbead which we all really liked but was worried about using cardamon as this is a first for me. As they liked it perhaps it’s cupcakes next then.
Choclette
17th January 2012 at 7:14 amCakeboule – I think with cardamom, it just depends how much you use. It does go very well with orange. It’s the same combination I used in the nonnettes recently. I really like it.
Kate Hackworthy
28th April 2014 at 7:44 pmThese sound absolutely delicious!
Sisley White
27th August 2019 at 6:33 pmWhat a flavour combination! Cardamom and oranges work so well together and I’d love to have a cupcake or five.
Choclette
29th August 2019 at 8:42 amThanks Sisley. I was really excited by this flavour combination when I discovered it. The reemergence of this recipe has reminded me of just how good it is.
Janice
29th August 2019 at 12:05 pmWhat a lovely looking Cupcake. Chocolate and orange is such a great flavour combination.
Choclette
29th August 2019 at 1:46 pmThis was a blast from the past. I’d completely forgotten about this particular flavour combination. Not so much the chocolate and orange, obviously, but with the cardamom too.
Christina Conte
29th August 2019 at 8:38 pmI ADORE chocolate and orange together, so I’m guessing that I would like these with the cardamom, too! Lovely to use a unique flavor once in a while to get out of a rut!
Choclette
30th August 2019 at 8:55 amCardamom is one of my favourite baking spices, but I haven’t used it for far too long. So this recipe was a good reminder.