Chocolate and Mascarpone Cup Cakes

I had a big tub of mascarpone in my fridge and was sick of making Tiramisu. I wanted to make something quick, chocolaty and good with it and decided to dump a few classic baking ingredients together, experiment with the oven temperature and cooking time and see what I could get out of it. Actually I am stuck at home with all 3 kids since they are all still sick and having them come complain to me every 10 minutes about each other is really getting on my nerves.

For 12 Chocolate-Mascarpone Cup Cakes :

200g Dark Chocolate for Desserts
75g Salted Butter
200g Mascarpone
4 Eggs
140g Sugar
50g Flour

Melt the chocolate and the butter over low heat in the microwave oven. Stir in the mascarpone.

Beat the eggs and the sugar till thick and creamy. Pour into the chocolate-mascarpone mixture and then fold in the flour gently.

Fill up half of each muffin mould with the mixture and bake in a heated oven (150ºC) for 20 minutes. The cup cakes will turn out wobbly, but due to the little flour used, it's normal. Let the cakes cool for at least an hour before consuming them. They will harden thanks to the chocolate. I find them even better the next day.

Salted Butter and Mascarpone go really well together. From Fabienne's blog, I learnt that you could make Salted Butter Caramel Mascarpone Jam to spread over your scones and cookies. Looked really yummy, if I'm not on a diet I would have gone for it...

Then to keep the kids amused, I went to You Tube to watch a few music videos. Eldest Son loved the Crazy Frog, Macarena and I Want to Move It videos. I cried over the Danny Chan and Sandy Lam videos. The following made me feel so nostalgic : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wyNPa8l37A

At nearly 7pm, I brought the 2 older kids to the doctor and they were diagnosed with some bacteria that has given them rashes all over the body, a bad sore throat, buttons on the scalp, stomachache and fever. Antibiotics had to be prescribed. But you know, here in Europe, you have to buy your medicine from a Pharmacy and they tend to close at 6pm. So you either start searching for those late-night pharmacies or you wait till the next day. I chose the latter.

I'll have to keep them at home the next day. Will have to bring Baby Girl with me to my German class at Berlitz though as it would be too late to cancel the class now. Hope she spreads all her bacteria when she's there and teach them to be more flexible with their cancellation policy.