Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes

February 19, 2012

What’s a hol­i­day with­out a baked good? Noth­ing. At least, that’s the truth accord­ing to my chil­dren. And prob­a­bly yours. For all my care in hand craft­ing organic baby food and keep­ing sweets to an absolute min­i­mum that I put in place for Esme’s early years, I’ve rebounded by doing a ter­ri­ble job with Julian. Okay, maybe not ter­ri­ble but it’s telling that he greets me at the pick up time at day­care with a hug and the state­ment, “Want a treat.” The boy is seri­ously addicted to sweets.

I was happy to come up with a com­pro­mise cup­cake for Valentine’s Day but obvi­ously it  would work for any time you wanted a lighter ver­sion of the clas­sic. The­ses are quite light and spongey, they go easy on sugar and have no but­ter at all. They’re also a snap to make. You could make them in the tra­di­tional size but I like keep­ing them small as one cup­cake still feels like a treat to my kids even if it’s mini. How long will that last, do you figure?

We hope you’re doing some­thing sweet today, SPC read­ers, happy Valentine’s Day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pho­tos by Maya Visnyei

 

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Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients

  • makes about 2 dozen
  • For the cupcakes:
  • 1 1/2 cup flour
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup cocoa pow­der
  • 2 tsp bak­ing pow­der
  • 1 tsp bak­ing soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2/3 cup yogurt
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 egg, whisked
  • For the icing:
  • 1 cup confectioner's sugar
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) soft­ened but­ter
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 Tbsp cocoa
  • 1 or 2 Tbsp of milk

Method

Pre­heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, cocoa, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda and salt. Cocoa pow­der has a ten­dency to ball up, so you may need to break those up with the back of a spoon as you're blending.

In a sec­ond bowl, blend yogurt, milk, vanilla and a whisked egg.

Com­bine the dry and wet ingre­di­ents until well blended. But don't over mix or you'll get hole-y cupcakes

Use a spoon to drop the bat­ter into a pre­pared muf­fin tin or you could use muf­fin papers.

I used a silicon tray on a cookie sheet

Pop them into a hot oven for 20 min­utes.

They're done when a tooth­pick inserted in the cen­tre comes out clean. Allow the cup­cakes to cool for a few min­utes before turn­ing them out of their pan. Then place them on a rack to cool com­pletely before icing.

For the icing:

cream the soft­ened but­ter with an elec­tric mixer until its light and fluffy.

Slowly add the sugar and cocoa until it cre­ates a smooth tex­ture.

Add the vanilla and enough milk to thin out the icing a bit and make it eas­ier to spread.

Give every cup­cake a good swirl of icing


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags Chocolatecupcakes
Category DairySnacks & DessertsSummerBy IngredientChocolateWinterBy SeasonBy Meal Type

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