Rich spiced chocolate, fruit & nut cupcakes

Ok, so today is a good day. Despite not being called for work (as a supply teacher), I have decided to use up the contents of my xmassy cupbaord stock and make something to celebrate the safe arrival of my brother and his girlfriend's baby girl. Clearly, nothing cheers me up more than baking - and if I'm in a fab mood anyway, I'll bake too!
I aquired a new book '200 cupcakes' (Hamlyn all colour cookbook range) and found a recipe in which I could encompass my Lindt chocolate bear. (Sorry Mum, I love chocolates but you know me and just 'chocolate'!) So searching for recipes with 100g chocolate, I found a fruity, chocolately recipe and scanning down it, realised that I had most of the ingredients in my cupbaord already, and that I could substitute most of the rest of the ingredients!
So it goes a little something like this....(in brackets is my variation on the ingredient stated in the book!)
65g lightly salted butter (I used 50g butter + 15g marg)
65g light muscavado sugar (light brown sugar 40g + caster 15g)
65g plain flour (Doves wheat-free plain blend)
15g cocoa powder (25g galaxy hot choc powder)
1 tsp ground mixed spice
1 egg
50g glace ginger chopped
100g mixed dried fruit (I used 75g glace ginger and 50g mixed fruit peel)
100g dried mixed chopped nuts (hazelnut, walnuts and pistachio mix)
100g milk chocolate chopped (a bashed to bits Lindt Bear!)
topping - chopped mixed nuts, chopped chocolate and caster sugar sprinkled over before they went in the oven.
This recipe made 8 cupcakes.
Method:
Mix flour, mixed spice, chocolate powder together and leave to one side.
Beat butter/marg with sugar and add in egg and whisk.
Stir in flour mixture and then add chopped chocolate, nuts and fruit and stir until equally combined,
Spoon into 8 cake cases and bake for 35 mins at 150 degs celcius until firm to touch.
and OMG - they're amamzing and fairly Christmassy too - so a great January recipe to use up what's left in the cupbaord....

:-)