Sweet Tooth Saturday – Easy Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to learn how to decorate cakes. I’m the girl who sees pictures like these on Pintrest, and I literally swoon.

Sources here, here, and here

While I should just bite the bullet and sign up for a class, I never seem to get around to it, so I decided to use the trusty old interwebs and attempt teach myself.  I don’t like to set myself up for failure, so I started small and simple – with cupcakes.  Since I knew I’d probably be quite slow piping the frosting, I wanted to find a quick and easy cake recipe.  A search of my bookmarked recipes led me to these cupcakes from Simply Recipes.  I made them exactly as written, but I made the careless mistake of grabbing Extra Virgin Olive Oil from my pantry.  I didn’t even think about it until my husband took a bite of the cupcake after eating all the frosting off the top, and his first question was, “So, what exactly is in these?”  When I mentioned the olive oil, he said that he could definitely detect its flavor in the cupcake.  Since he was a big fan of the frosting, and I love the idea of cupcakes that don’t require butter, eggs, or a mixer, I decided round two was in order.  This time I replaced the olive oil with coconut oil and substituted the vanilla extract with coconut extract. The changes produced a cupcake that was even more moist than the original recipe, and I loved it, but the husband still complained of a “distinct” taste from the coconut oil. Turns out when the man wants a chocolate cupcake, he really just wants to taste the chocolate!

 
Easy Chocolate Cupcakes
Just barely adapted from Simply Recipes
Makes 12 Cupcakes

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup of warm water mixed with 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant coffee granules
• 1 Tbsp white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons coconut extract
• 6 Tbsp melted coconut oil

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. In a large bowl, vigorously whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together water and coffee granules.  Add the vinegar, coconut extract, and coconut oil.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir only until they just come together. Do not over mix.
5. Ladle the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about two-thirds of the way full. Place in oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a bamboo skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool completely on a rack prior to frosting.

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

Adapted from Allrecipes

Makes enough frosting for 12 cupcakes with leftover frosting

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature 
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar

1. In a large bowl, beat butter and cocoa together until combined. Alternate adding milk and confectioners’ sugar, beating until smooth after each addition. Add vanilla and beat until incorporated. Adjust with more milk or confectioners' sugar if necessary.

When it came time to frost the cupcakes, I referred to Our Best Bites for a very helpful tutorial.  I definitely need to continue working on my frosting technique, but I’m excited that my first attempt wasn’t a total disaster.