Maggie’s Makes Any Situation Better Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes
with Vanilla Frosting

This recipe can make any day better and anybody happy. The key is the high cacao content in the cupcake. Even the most die hard chocoholics have a hard time eating more than one!  If you would like, you can leave off the icing- but licking it off is half the fun!

Cupcakes

Ingredients

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium until it is light and fluffy.  The color of the mixture will turn to a pale yellow after several minutes of beating.  You can’t over beat the batter at this point in time.

3. Add eggs to butter and sugar mixture one at a time, beating until the egg is well blended into the batter before adding the next egg.  Add vanilla and beat until blended as well.

4. Sift together cacao powder, flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.  If you don’t have a sifter, a colander or strainer will do in a pinch.  They key here is to combine ingredients and remove lumps.

5. Add 1/3 cacao mixture to butter mixture, mix on low speed until combined- scrape down sides of bowl.  Add ½ of the sour cream, mix on low speed until combined- crape down sides of bowl.  Add another 1/3 of cacao mixture, mix on low speed until combined- scrape down sides of bowl.  Add last ½ of sour cream, mix on low speed until combined- scrape down sides of bowl.  Add last 1/3 of cacao mixture, mix on low speed until combined.

6. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.

7. Place 12 paper baking cups in a muffin pan.  Spoon batter evenly into cups filling them completely full.

8. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until a wood toothpick inserted in to the center, but not through a chocolate chip, comes out clean.

9. Let the cupcakes cool in the muffin pan for about five minutes and then cool for a half of an hour.  In reality, however, if you make it past 15 minutes, the cupcake should be cool enough to ice or at least to eat without burning the heck out of yourself.

Vanilla Icing

I know a lot of people are scared of making icing.  This recipe is very easy and when using butter does not contain all of the transfats, corn syrup, and preservatives that the stuff in the can has.

Ingredients

½ cup               Butter- softened but not melted
3 cups              Powdered Sugar***
1 TSP              Vanilla
2-3 TBSP        Milk (any kind- I use half and half)

1. Beat the butter with your electric mixer until the butter is creamy.  Again, the butter will lighten in color as it is whipped- that is important.

2. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until smoothed (however, if your butter was too soft, it will be a bit chunky).

3. Add vanilla and 2 TBSP to mixture and beat.  If it does not have the consistency of icing yet, add another bit of milk beating after each small addition until it does.  Try not to eat all of the icing before you get it on the cupcakes.  It is just enough for the twelve cupcakes above.

*  Do not use coco powder.  The cacao is a purer form and is a very different consistency.  Cacao powder can be obtained from high end grocery stores or import stores (like World Market) in the food section.  Yes, it is much more expensive than coca, but really worth it.  If you are on a budget and must use coca powder, increase it to ¾ cup.

** These are pretty easy to find nowadays in most grocery stores.  Ghirardelli makes excellent ones.  Then, with the other half or so of the bag, you can make chocolate dipped strawberries!  If you can’t find the chip form, you can chop a bar of high cacao chocolate.

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