Cocoa Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Icing

Happy Valentine's Day

In the spirit of Valentine's I decided to whip up a batch of chocolate cupcakes for my husband's grade 3/4 class. For inspiration I visited my local bulk barn store to find some colourful decorations. First I found some purple foil wrapped chocolate hearts filled with caramel. Then I even found purple coloured sugar to match! Now I was ready to bake...the only trouble was I needed a recipe that would yeild a batch of 48 cupcakes...

As I browsed my extensive collection of cookbooks I found that most recipes only yeilded 12 cupcakes. Which meant I would have to multiply everything by 4 so I kept searching until I found Anna Olson's recipe which yeilds 24. I also liked this recipe because unlike most it used brown sugar to keep the cakes moist. And I must say that it did do the trick.

Who's kidding who this was an excuse for me to indulge in some chocolate.

Cupcake Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups dark brown sugar
1/3 cup milk
6 tbsp regular cocoa powder (not Dutch process), sifted
9 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2/3 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup milk

Chocolate Icing Ingredients:

1/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/2 cup cocoa, sifted
1 tsp vanilla
2 oz semisweet chocolate, melted
Candies for garnish

Coloured Sugar

Cupcake Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F and line muffin tins with paper cups.

2. Stir together 2/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup milk and cocoa powder over medium heat until well blended. Remove from heat.

3. With a hand mixer, beat softened butter and remaining 2/3 cup of brown sugar into cocoa mixture until fluffy.

4. Add eggs and vanilla and blend. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Add alternately with ¼ cup milk until all ingredients have been incorporated.

5. Spoon into paper cups, filling halfway.

6. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a tester inserted in the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

Chocolate Icing Directions:

1. For icing, beat butter until fluffy.

2. On low speed beat in icing sugar and cocoa until smooth.

3. Beat in vanilla.

4. Stir in melted chocolate.

5. If the icing is too thin, add a touch more icing sugar.

6. Spread icing onto cupcakes and garnish with candies and sugar of your choice.