Delectables with Dan Presents: Chocolate Orange Madness

Today on Delectables with Dan we're going to be playing around with flavour.

Sadly, I'm not drunk doing this blog since it's only 7.45 in the morning, but I probably will be next time. Let's get to this, shall we? We all love a good chocolate orange, don't we? They're available mainly around Christmas time, which I wholeheartedly disagree with. They should be available year round, but alas I am not a marketing executive. Fear not my choccy-fruit loving fiends, I'm here with a bit of fresh-baked beauty to fulfil your chocolate orange needs.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED
1 yellow cake mix

2-3 tsp of orange essence 

3/4c milk chocolate chips 

1 tub chocolate icing 

Yes, you heard me, a tub of chocolate icing. I'm too tired to make the chocolate icings that I usually home make. It's all just a distraction from the bigger picture of my deepening sorrow and I have other things to than preoccupy myself with small, meaningless tasks that distract me from my true goals. Oh, that got a little deep there. Sorry, I forgot what series I was working on. Here on Delectables with Dan, we keep things humour-filled and perverted.

Get a large mixing bowl and make the cake batter according to what the box has to say. You know, I should get back into making from scratch cakes. I need to set aside some time for this. Maybe for Cotton's upcoming birthday, I'll do it. Last year I did a chocolate peanut butter cake for her and she's asked for a new twist on that for this year, so that should be fun. Stay tuned for that at the end of this month.  Use an electric mixer to blend the ingreidents better; once you've done that allow the mix to sit a minute or two before adding in the orange essence.  Blend again on low speed to ensure that the flavouring is evenly mixed into the batter.  Take your little cupcake condoms-I should really learn the proper term for them but oh well- and set them into a NON-GREASED cupcake tray. Using a ladle, fill the cups 3/4 filled with batter. ((You know like a teenage girls' bra when she's trying to tell you she's a bigger cup size than she actually is. ))

Put into bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes depending on your oven. Check on them regularly; you want a strong pullout game when you're baking cupcakes. It's not as much a game of Russian Roulette than raw dogging your side chick but it's up there.  When you remove them from the oven, let them cool before you ice them. Icing them warm is like asking your rageaholic boss who's on her period for a day off for a therapy appointment. It will be a disaster. 

Now that the cupcakes are cool, we're going to fill up our icing tool with icing and use a nice star tip. Or you can use a thicc round hole tip-that sounds filthy and that isn't what I was aiming for at all. I need to get one of those tips though. I need them for next months Halloween specials.

Start with a small start burst of icing in the centre of the cupcake. Work counter-clockwise icing in a  little hill motion and finish with a flourish on the top. Once you've iced all your cupcakes, if you desire, sprinkle spooky sprinkles on the top of your cupcakes for an added burst of colour that really catches the eye. Interesting because the one who never fails to catch my eye almost never wears colour...And there we have it! This Delectables with Dan is over! I'm going to be doing a cooking episode for Delectables next so stay tuned!