I'm not much of a baker, so my default is to buy cakes or cupcakes for friends and family birthdays.
But when the pandemic started in 2020, I didn't have too many options, so I started making my own cupcakes following various internet recipes. There were several duds where the cupcakes turned out dry like cardboard, and I had to basically mash the entire batch with the frosting to make cake balls and cake pops (cuz you know, I don't like to waste food). But there were also some recipes that turned out really nice and moist.
Now, my problem is I'm getting old and decrepit!!!
When I need to make cupcakes, I go and google chocolate cup cakes. But soooooooo many top hits turn up, and I SERIOUSLY can't remember which ones were the ones that gave me cardboard, and which ones were moist.
When friends came over last fall, I made a recipe that I swore I made before and was good. BUT I guess I totally remembered wrong. Let's just say, the friends were nice and choked it down and said, "Hey, the frosting on this is really good." But no comment about the cupcake portion. ha ha
So I decided that in this post, I'm going to document the chocolate cupcake recipe that gave me moist "frostable" cupcakes; plus also document my favorite frosting recipe so that the next time I have to make cupcakes, I have this for reference.
For my sister's birthday this year, I made a dozen chocolate cupcakes using this recipe from Sally's baking addiction website. I followed all her tips except I filled mine a little more than halfway because I didn't want 14 cupcakes spread in 2 pans--I just wanted 12 cupcakes baked in 1 pan. It still turns out fine--no muffin tops, or sunken middles from filling the muffin tins slightly more than half way full. The texture of the cupcake is nice and moist and the chocolate flavor is present, not muted. REALLY a seriously great cupcake recipe!
And then for the frosting, I used this fluffy vanilla frosting recipe from recipetineats. I like the flavor and texture a WHOLE LOT more than traditional butter cream frostings that I find too heavy and sweet tasting for me. This frosting recipe is truly a winner in my book, and I love it! The only problem I have is that when I try to put it in a piping bag to pipe, it softens too easily and I end up wasting a lot of frosting as it kind of "melts" part way piping. I would make the entire recipe (i.e. 2 sticks of butter) and can barely frost a dozen cupcakes. Clearly, it's due to my inexperience with using a piping bag, but I admit my short comings... and like I said in the beginning...I'm old.
And you can't teach an this old dog new tricks.
So I've finally come to the conclusion that with this frosting, don't bother to pipe it, but instead just dollop generously and spread with a knife. It works great that way, and I was able to make half the frosting recipe (i.e. just one stick of butter) to frost 12 cup cakes with 3 different flavors to boot! How about that?! (Pictured below is how much frosting that is per cupcake using only half her recipe for the base frosting. If you are the type that likes "mile high" frosting, then you may need to make the full recipe to frost 12 cupcakes...)
For the above pictured cupcakes, I basically made half her frosting recipe as the base in a mixing bowl (bowl #1). I then divided the frosting to 3 equal portions to make 3 different flavors of frosting.
- To the first portion of the frosting, I added in 2 tablespoons of strawberry jam for a strawberry frosting, and beat with hand held mixer. Next time, I will use crushed freeze dried strawberries to amp the strawberry flavor up.
- To the 2nd portion of the frosting, I added in 2 heaping tablespoons of nutella and mixed with a hand held mixer for a hazelnut chocolate frosting. Would have been nice if I had hazelnuts for decoration.
- And to the 3rd and final portion, I added in 2 heaping tablespoons of chunky peanut butter and 1 T cocoa powder and mixed with a hand held mixer for a chocolate peanut butter frosting. I topped the cupcake with a quarter of a Reese's peanut butter cup for decoration and to distinguish it from the nutella frosted cupcakes.
I didn't even clean the mixing beaters or bowls in between frosting flavors since I started with the "lighter" tasting flavor first. That is, I scooped out 2/3's of the base frosting to bowl #2. Then to the original mixing bowl #1, I added in the strawberry jam and beat to mix. After frosting 4 cupcakes with all the strawberry frosting, I scooped half of the base frosting that is in bowl #2 to bowl #1 and mixed in nutella and frosted 4 more cupcakes. (No need to clean the tiny amount of strawberry frosting remaining on the beater and bowl #1 as the flavor won't be detected in the nutella frosting.) And then finally, I scooped in the remaining frosting from bowl #2 to bowl #1 and added in the peanut butter and cocoa powder. Again, no need to clean the remaining nutella frosting from the beater as the peanut butter flavor is stronger than nutella. Of course if you are serving this to someone with a nut allergy, then yes, please clean the bowls and beaters in between frostings.
