Friday, May 13, 2011

chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing

Today I came home and made some cornbread muffins (previous post) from SK, which she had made from a recipe on a chef's website of a restaurant she had eaten the cornbread at. As complicated as that was, the moral of the story is that the chef has a website where he posts recipes, which is unusual but cool. So I was poking around, and as I had finished the cornbread far too quickly and easily to satiate my cooking quota for the week, I looked to see if he had a chocolate cake recipe. He had his family's classic chocolate birthday cake recipe, so I decided to give it a try and make chocolate cupcakes from it.






Note: I halved the cake recipe to make 12 cupcakes and thirded (is that a word?) the frosting recipe

2 eggs
1 cup whole milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa powder, plus for dusting
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup boiling water
Vanilla Frosting, recipe follows

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and dust two 9-inch baking pans with cocoa powder and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla and whisk to combine.

In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder. Stir to combine.

In a steady stream, add the liquid ingredients and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add the boiling water and stir on low to combine. (The batter will be thin.) Pour the batter into prepared pans. Rap the pans lightly on the counter-top to release any air bubbles inside.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cakes in pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack, then remove from pans to the racks. Cool completely before frosting with Vanilla Frosting.

frosting: (remember, I did 1/3 for my cupcakes)
2 sticks butter, at room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons whole milk

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter, confectioners’ sugar, and salt. Beat on low speed until combined, about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then increase speed to medium high and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Stop mixer, add the vanilla and milk, then continue beating 3 minutes on medium high on a stand mixer, or 5 minutes on a handheld mixer.

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