Blessing your Friday with these absolute beauties! Chocolate orange cupcakes with a coffee infused buttercream frosting then topped with these cute oven-dried orange slices!
You can’t go wrong with a chocolate cupcake that is blended with a little orange zest and orange juice. They make the perfect sweet treat!
Originally, I was going to stick with my classic chocolate cupcake recipe but I already knew I wanted to make oven-dried orange slices as the cupcake toppers. So, I decided to blend a little fresh orange zest and juice in the chocolate cupcake batter and voila! Chocolate-orange cupcake deliciousness, are you salivating yet? Oh wait… there’s more!
I wanted the frosting to be that pale brown (ok that sounds nasty, let’s say “beige”). Caramel was off the board as I just posted caramel muffins yesterday and I can’t look like I’m too obsessed with caramel right? Because I am obsessed with caramel…
What’s just as good as caramel I asked myself? Coffee – duh!! The next thought process was “does chocolate, orange and coffee work well altogether?”. Yeah… of course they do… why couldn’t they? The conclusion was made, choc-orange cupcakes topped with a coffee infused buttercream frosting, yasss!!! Now we are getting somewhere, are you getting excited?! All three flavours blend together so perfectly and it’s not overpowering at all. Very subtle.
The oven-dried orange slices are completely optional, I just love the look of them so much, they’re so much fun! If you would like to make them for your cupcakes, the recipe is super simple! Just a little time consuming because you have to dry them out in the oven for around 2-2 1/2 hours, so you can definilty make them ahead of time.
You guys! It’s the long weekend this weekend here in Australia and although I don’t have plans, I just love knowing that the whole family will be home on Monday, yay! Hope you all have a fabulous weekend too! Enjoy!
- Oven-Dried Orange Slices
- 1 large orange
- 2 Tbsp icing sugar
- Cupcakes
- 2 Tbsp coconut oil (or butter), melted
- 1 cup gluten free all purpose flour or regular all-purpose flour, *I like Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten Free Baking Flour*
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 Tbsp cacao powder
- 1 cup coconut sugar
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup almond milk or any thin non-dairy milk of choice
- ½ tsp instant coffee granules
- ½ tsp vanilla bean extract
- Zest of 1 medium-large orange
- 2 Tbsp fresh orange juice, approx. juice of half a medium orange
- Coffee Frosting
- 2 tsp instant coffee granules mixed with 2 Tbsp boiling water then cooled down in the refrigerator
- 60g butter, chopped into chunks**
- 3-4 cups icing sugar
- 1-2 Tbsp almond milk or any thin non-dairy milk of choice
- Oven-Dried Orange Slices
- Preheat oven to 100°C (200°F). Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Slice orange, not too thin and not too thick. Enough so they will hold their shape on the cupcakes.
- Place slices over lined tray.
- Sprinkle icing sugar over each orange slice.
- Place in oven and dry slices out for approx. 2 - 2½ hours. Or until completely dried and slightly golden.
- You can make these ahead of time as they will keep.
- Cupcakes
- Reduce oven temp to 180ºC (356ºC). Line a 12-hole muffin/cupcake pan with cupcake patties. Set aside.
- Melt butter (or coconut oil) first and then set aside to cool to room temperature.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cacao and sugar. Mix well.
- To the flour, add eggs, milk, coffee, vanilla, orange zest and juice.
- Pour in melted coconut oil (or butter).
- Using a hand mixer, beat the mixture for 2 minutes on medium speed. Scraping down the sides occasionally. NOTE: You may also use a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium speed for this step.
- Spoon batter evenly between cupcake patties, filling each ⅔ of the way up.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean and the tops of the cupcakes spring back when touched.
- Remove and cool in pan for 5 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- Coffee Frosting
- In a mug, add coffee granules and stir in the boiling water, mix well until coffee has dissolved. Set in the refrigerator to cool down. Or place in the freezer to cool down quicker.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add butter. Whisk for 10 seconds or until just soft.
- Gradually add icing sugar, 1 cup at a time.
- Between additions of icing sugar, add milk, a little at a time, just to help bring the mixture together.
- Pour in chilled liquid coffee, beat for a further 30 seconds until well blended, light and fluffy.
- Prepare a piping bag with a small open star nozzle.
- Fill piping bag with frosting and pipe small dollops of frosting on each cupcakes, covering the top of the cupcake.
- Top each cupcake with oven-dried orange slices.
- Serve and Enjoy!
*I love Bobs Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten Free Baking Flour in my baked goods. It works perfectly as an exact swap for regular flour as a 1:1 ratio. You may also use any other gluten free all purpose flour or any regular wheat all purpose flour.
**You may also replace the butter in the frosting with an equal amount of solid coconut oil or a vegan option. I prefer to use butter as it gives the frosting a more stable end product.
Leave a Reply