Chocolate For Cherry Cupcakes

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes (from NIGELLA EXPRESS) are chocolate sponge cakes topped with a chocolate ganache icing. Usually Nigella recommends using a dark (bittersweet) chocolate with 70% cocoa solids for baking, as this gives a deep and rounded chocolate flavour.

For the sponge itself we would still prefer to use a chocolate with 70% cocoa solids as the sponges may not have quite the same flavour if you use a chocolate with a lower level of cocoa solids. However for the ganache icing you could use a chocolate with a lower level of cocoa solids if you wanted something sweeter, so a chocolate with 50% cocoa solids would be suitable (for the US this would be classed as semisweet chocolate). If this is still too strong for your taste then you could use half dark and half milk chocolate, though try to use the best quality possible.