Chocolate Cupcakes

I am not really a cake fan (they are generally too light for my taste) but every so often I get a hankering for cupcakes. And just before I left on my business trip I got it into my head that we must make chocolate cupcakes. And so we did.

I used the recipe from Joy the Baker for Double Chocolate Devil's Food Cake with Fresh Raspberries.

We are an anti-coffee household and I didn't want to risk having the cupcakes taste of coffee because I knew they would just get pitched, so I adapted the recipe slightly. Here's what I did.

Makes 30 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 350F

BOWL ONE:
WHISK together boiling water and coca powder.
Once smooth, BLEND in milk and vanilla.

BOWL TWO:
MIX together the flour, baking soda, and salt

BOWL 3 (Stand Mixer if you have one)
BEAT butter and sugar.
ADD eggs one at a time, BEAT after each addition.
ALTERNATE ADDING flour and chocolate mixtures. Begin and end with the flour mixture.

LINE cupcake tin with paper liners (or grease)

SPOON 2TBS of batter into each tin.

BAKE until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (I totally lost track of how long they were in there for and we were using the convect setting anyway, so just eyeball it.)

My Thoughts
1. These are excellent chocolate cupcakes. They hold up well to being paired with other flavors making them a great base recipe to fiddle with, but they are tasty just by themselves. They are moist with a crumb that holds together well. The coffee would probably give it a richer flavor, it needs just a little bit "more", but they are solid as is.

2. We actually made these with Berry Compote Filling and frosted with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. Delicious and perfect.