Walnut Brownie Cupcakes - Hello Cupcake!

Imagine a mouthful of rich, slightly gooey chocolate brownie, then suddenly you crunch into a bitter sweet walnut - you've just had a virtual Walnut Brownie Cupcake!

These little beauties come from a delightful little book called 'Hello Cupcake' by Leila Lindholm, published by New Holland. RRP is £12.99 although it's on sale at a popular on line bookshop for £7.14 but you have the chance to win a copy, right here on my blog.  Scroll down to the bottom of the post and follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget.

The book is dedicated to cupcakes and whoopie pies and contains lots of very tempting recipes some classic combinations like Butterfly Lemon Cupcakes and Double Chocolate Whoopie Pies.  Then there are some more unusual flavours like Rhubarb Cheesecake cupcakes, Sticky pecan upside down cupcakes and Nutella Whoopie Pies.  Then there are some really fun recipes like S'mores whoopie pies, Elvis Presley Cupcakes and Miss Piggy cupcakes!

I really liked that every few pages there was a page of tips, for example tips about oven temperatures, or the story of the creation of Whoopie Pies.  The photographs are stunning, both of the cupcakes and the many children who feature enjoying the cakes!

I decided to bake the Walnut Brownie Cupcakes, not only because they looked delicious but so I could enter them for this month's Alphabakes challenge - letter "W".

They would also be really popular at a cake stall so I am also entering the cupcakes for Tea Time Treats.

Walnut Brownie Cupcakes

200g walnuts
175g butter
150g light muscovado sugar
150g good quality cocoa powder (I used 100g and found that quite enough)
50ml golden syrup
1 pinch salt
3 free range eggs
150g plain (all purpose) flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g good quality 70& dark chocolate

1. Turn the oven to 175C
2. Toast the whole walnuts in a hot and dry frying pan
3. Whip the butter, sugar and muscovado sugar until creamy.
4. Add the cocoa, syrup and salt.
5. Whisk in one egg at a time.
6. Mix the flour with the baking powder and sift it into the other ingredients.
7. Coarsely chop the chocolate and add it and the whole walnuts to the batter.
8. Set out paper cups in a muffin tin and fill the cups with  two-thirds full with the mixture.
9. Bake them in a middle of the oven for about 5-20 minutes.  Test them with a toothpick, they should be a little sticky in the middle.  Leave them to cool.


Leila suggests decorating the cupcakes with shipped cream and fresh raspberries, but I made up a little butter cream and piped a swirl on top!

The recipe was easy to make, there was just one thing...the recipe says that it makes 12 cupcakes and I made 24 normal sized cupcakes and 10 mini cupcakes!  Not that I'm complaining but if you didn't have two cupcake tins you might find you had to bake this in two batches.

Alphabakes is run by Ros at The more than occasional baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes and Teatime Treats is run by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked

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 Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. I was not required to write a positive review and any opinion expressed is my own.