Chocolate Cupcakes
Chocolate Cupcakes
The cupcake craze—who could have predicted it? But truthfully, what’s not to love? An adorable, hand-sized cake with a slick of delicious frosting on top. I can get behind that. Or rather get my mouth on top of that.
But what I could never understand in the cupcake phenomena was the fascination with really sickly, sweet frosting. I just didn’t get it. I’ll never get it. I’m happily in the minority here is the U.S.because I don’t have a super sweet tooth which will hopefully mean that I’ll get to keep my actual teeth for a long time. I’ve been called a cupcake snob and I’ll gladly wear the hat. I like a well textured, well balanced cake and a frosting that makes me purrrrrrr. Give me real ganache frosting or classic butter cream or cream cheese frosting or give me something else to eat.
My favorite detail on my chocolate cupcake RECI-TEE is the little heart sprinkles again just for food porn.
These are chocolaty chocolate cupcakes. I top them with chocolate ganache frosting that’s only as sweet as the chocolate you use in it.
Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 1 cup cake flour, sifted
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Grease 2 1/2” x 1 1/4” cupcake pans and line with paper liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk boiling water and cocoa powder until smooth. Set aside until cooled.
- In a stand mixer, combine cake flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt and baking soda. Blend on low speed.
- Beat in half of the cocoa mixture and the butter on medium speed for 1 minute, then scrape down sides of bowl and beat for another minute.
- Mix sour cream, eggs and vanilla into remaining cocoa mixture. Add the cocoa/sour cream mixture to the mixer in 3 batches, beating for a half minute and scraping the sides of the bowl each time. Do not over beat.
- Fill liners evenly and bake for 20 - 30 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.
- Cool and frost with Chocolate Ganache Frosting.