Forever Festive Nigella: Christmassy Chocolate Cupcakes

I've been really good this year.

(This isn't a last minute plea to Father Christmas....Honest).

I've been really good and I've eaten every single advent calendar chocolate on the day they were supposed to be eaten.

I can't begin to tell you the willpower required. I can't count the number of times I've been over to the calander and almost opened them all. How I've resisted the chocolates twinkling away under the festive lights I don't know. I swear, in my weaker moments, the little chocolate penguins been whispering 'Eat Me. You know you want to'. 

So, as a reward for my patience and goodwill-towards-my-calendar, I made myself these Christmassy Chocolate Cupcakes. These are also in honour of the last ever Forever Nigella, hosted by Maison Cupcake.

As per the rules of this lovely, lovely challenge, I won't repeat the recipe verbatim, but these are based upon Nigella's Christmas Cupcake recipe, which is found in How to be a Domestic Goddess and also online here.

Baker's notes...

• Rather than the royal icing topping Nigella suggests, I simply used angel and star Christmas cutters and fondant icing
• Maybe next year I can persuade someone to buy me this advent calendar, from Harrods. It is the world's most expensive advent calendar, costing a whopping $1million. But at least I won't have the problem of thinking chocolate penguins are talking to me for 24 days... instead I'll just need to figure out how to drive a yacht.