A quick little baking burst this morning so I’d have something to finish up a brunch. I had a complete disaster earlier this week when I whipped up some date and chocolate muffins for the tradies working here during some renovations, and I needed to prove to myself I could actually produce something edible.

Most of my cookbooks are in storage at the moment so I improvised. Normally that works OK, but not this time. Perhaps I should say, it works OK with savoury dishes, but sweet things are not my strength and perhaps I should have remembered that.

The muffins ended up overcooked and so dry they could have been used in some of the brick repairs. I’d promised them to the builder so I took them out still warm with a massive bowl of whipped cream that I hoped might disguise how awful they were. And it did help, but they were still dreadful and I feel quite ashamed I let them leave the kitchen.

So today I tried again with dates and chocolate to see what I could come up with. But this time I went in search of more thoroughly grounded inspiration (i.e., an actual recipe).

And so, I went with chocolate date cupcakes. It’s a Cadbury recipe, and the only real difference was that I used a Dutch cocoa (unsweetened) and dark chocolate chips. It’s an unusual recipe, with no flour, just cocoa and cornstarch. It has a lovely orangey flavour with some orange zest and juice in it, along with the dates and choc chips.

I didn’t bother with the paper cups, since I had none and my muffin pan is well seasoned at this stage. A good spray, and they came out with no fuss at all.

Verdict: really delicious. I will make these again.

corinna hente