I warned you it would happen, and it did. It's September. Waaaaah! As we leave summer in the rearview mirror, what better way to distract ourselves than chocolate? I love a classic chocolate cupcake. There are a couple of things that a chocolate cupcake must be:
1. Moist- above all, a classic chocolate cupcake must be moist. I slightly changed my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe (which always turn out perfect!) by decreasing the vanilla extract and adding a bunch of cocoa. These cakes didn't fail me, turning out perfectly luscious.
2. Chocolatey- To start, I added a half cup of cocoa to the batter. One taste was enough to let me know I needed MORE chocolate. 3/4 cup cocoa was optimal.
3. Delicious Frosting- I hate frosting. I'll rephrase that- I hate most frostings. I hate how commercial frostings are overly sweet and excessively grainy. I also have great disdain for piling a pound of frosting on a cake. Yuck. I made my absolute favorite frosting to go on these cakes. Homemade and whipped into submission, this frosting tastes like whip cream, not commercial frosting.
And I won't add this as a requirement to a classic chocolate cupcake, but I love me some sprinkles! Really and truly, I sprinkled these cupcakes because I made them for the kids. I'll just keep telling myself that :)
I made these for our family Labor Day Cookout, and they were a hit. The kids were clamoring for cupcakes before dinner (as usual!) and I must admit, they got a few bites. My niece, the little resident sweet tooth, had 2 1/2 while I was there. Sweets never go untouched with our crowd.
Annnnnnnd, I think y'all really need to see how much the cupcakes were enjoyed-
My niece, hamming it up for the camera. I could barely get the boys to smile for the camera, but my niece? She loves the camera. If I want a picture of someone devouring a cupcake, my niece will be the first one to shove that confection in her face. And enjoy the heck out of it while she's doing it!
Boy were they mad when they realized I took a picture :)
The other ham in the family. Could this be where my niece gets it from? Haha.
Did everyone have a fun holiday weekend? We had our family barbecue on Saturday due to everyone's buy schedules. The hubby and I had a fantasy draft on Sunday afternoon that went semi-distastrously. Our league is scattered over the country, with half the faction living on the West Coast and the rest of us stretching from Northern Kentucky to Cincinnati. After some serious finagling with schedules, we found time to do an online draft. The only problem? Our friend's account wouldn't let her draft a single player. The option was simply greyed out. The other gigantic problem? We couldn't stop the draft once it started. We all had to go on auto-pick and wait for it to end to start over. Talk about taking the air out of your tires. We thought we had our friend up and running, only to come up with the same problem when we re-started. We came up with a work-around (eventually) but a draft that should have taken an hour and half ended up delayed and stretched over a 7 hour period. Now that I think about, we just had our friends over for 7 hours. The draft may have wrapped around the 5 and a half hour mark :)
Regardless, we now have our fantasy teams, so bring on the season!
Have a great week everyone!
Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes):
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 egg whites
1/4 cup Greek yogurt, plain
1 cup almond milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
sprinkles (garnish)
Directions:
1. Line a cupcake pan with liners. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. In a small mixing bowl, combine flour through baking soda. Whisk to mix. Set aside.
3. In a large microwave-safe mixing bowl, melt the butter. When melted, add sugar. Whisk until no lumps remain. Mixture will be very grainy. Mix in egg whites. Mix in yogurt, milk, and vanilla until batter is smooth. Batter will be very thick. Distribute evenly among cupcake pan. Bake in preheated oven, 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean with moist crumbs. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.
4. Prepare frosting. Frost and sprinkle cupcakes to taste. Store in an airtight container.
Looking for other cupcake recipes? Try these!
Holy damn!! I'M INTRIGUED!!!! I love a good cupcake :)
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