Chocolate cupcakes with a jam filling

Now that the kids (mine and the other nieces , nephews , their friends and then some..) have gotten older, the food that I tend to cook for them has aged alongside. I know what you’re thinking… ‘since when did you have to be a kid to eat a cupcake?!’  Ordinarily that would be true …but if you were one of mine (including the extended lot) you’d know that I’ve baked more than my share in the last 12 years and that ‘s not counting just the birthdays !

I remember this one time that I baked 40 mini cakes for a dear niece and she called me up promptly the next day to tell me how delicious they were and  to ask when I was going to send her the next lot ! I kid you not ! These cuppy cake monsters are never happy with 2 or 3 per person, nothing short of 10 each will do.

So, you can understand when I tell you , why I needed to cut back from being the “cupcake mom” for awhile. My sanity was at stake here  😉

Anyway , so in rolled a birthday and there was no way out ! They had to emerge from their hiding space ; the muffin trays , the paper cases and the rest of my cake paraphernalia. Since I was in the mood to try something different from my usual cuppycakes and the current Masterchef Australia series was all about hidden surprises, I thought why not do some jam filled ones.

I was gifted a jar of beautiful organic strawberry jam and I couldn’t think of a more special way to use it.

And the nice thing about deciding on a particular flavour for an occasion is that you tend to never forget the person or persons you made it for….those feelings of joy permeate your food and then how can it not turn out delicious !?!

So , yes I smiled as I carefully added a bit of jam into each of these mini cases, it’s not easy… it was becoming apparent that I should’ve gone for the bigger size .That’s fine except for the fact that I hate kids wasting food (the bigger cupcakes are quite a few mouthfuls) and I know you will agree with me that it feels nicer to eat 2 small cupcakes rather than 1 big one.

These need to be baked just right , even if they’re slightly over baked , the jam tends to dry up rather than ooze out . Oh the sight of a warm cupcake being pulled apart just enough for the jam to spill out …. happy happy !

The melted chocolate on the top leaves no further room for improvement ! My favourite topping of all time !

It kept my cupcake nibblers smiling for days !