Two great friends of mine had recently given me a very decent coffee maker — for free! There was really only one way to say ‘thank you’, which was to have them over for coffee with a treat. For the occassion, I whipped up these cappuccino cupcakes within the hour. I believe these portrayed my gratitude appropriately!

Ingredients:

200 g flour

7 g baking powder (approximately 1 tablespoon, or you could use self-raising flour)

220 g sugar

a pinch of salt

1 egg

180 ml milk

60 ml vegetable oil (I prefer peanut or sunflower)

vanilla extract, or the contents of  1 ‘fresh’ vanilla bean

some tablespoons of extra extra extra strong coffee, to taste

mascarpone, or another type of delicious heavy cream, about 125 g

powdered sugar, amount to taste

1.  Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt).
2. In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients (egg, milk, oil, coffee) and vanilla.
3. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, pour the mixture in baking cups lined up in a cupcake baking tray and bake for about 25 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.
4. Mix powdered sugar into the cream until you think the taste is just sweet enough.
5. When the cupcakes are cooled (preferably on a wire rack), just smear the cream on top, and finish with a some chocolate sprinkles or cocoa powder.