I've never made cupcakes from scratch before (I know, blasphemy for those of you that are baking aficionados out there) so I had to do a quick search on the laptop. This was the first recipe I saw so here goes:
Chocolate Cupcakes
(recipe from allrecipes.com)
Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside. (I had TC do all this and I didn't sift it - I just dumped it all in and had her whisk it)
2.In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full. (TC enjoyed cracking the eggs and adding in the vanilla, flour and milk while I did the mixing)
3.Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Frost with your favorite frosting when cool.
The recipe made about 1 dozen of the regular size and 1 1 /2 dozen of the smaller size. I also added some Ghirardhelli dark chocolate chips to the bigger sized batch. I don't know WTF I did wrong but they came out of the oven all nice and puffed up, then....POOF. They deflated quicker than an old man's limp...okay, I'll stopt here. It was almost comical to see but I was a bit dejected because I thought this would be a fool proof recipe. Whenever I've made cupcakes from a mix, I've never had problems and then I get these souffle looking things that collapsed upon itself like a black hole.
I ended up putting them back in the oven for a few more minutes. I think my mistake early on was adding the chocolate chips. They are bigger than regular chips and they probably weighed down the batter, making it a bit too wet and fudgy.
Since we were making cupcakes from scratch, I figured we'd do the frosting from scratch too. That's pretty uncomplicated...
Cream Cheese Frosting:
Ingredients:
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened (1/2 stick)
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
1.In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.
Pretty easy and it tastes better than the canned frosting.
I don't have any photos of the frosted cupcakes. TC frosted the mini ones and smashed some Skittles into wierd pieces then gave it to her friends across the street (the neighbor sisters). Kind of a strange topping if you ask me, but they love candy in any shape or form it seems.
The next day, I tried one of the bigger cupcakes and while they were good, they were waay too sweet. So maybe I should have held off on those chips.
On a totally different note, here's a preview of True Blood Season 4 featuring my favorite Swedish manmeat, Alexander Skarsgard:
If it follows Book 4 of the series, then I only hope we get to see his character in tight pink spandex.
It was indeed a lucky evening for my friend who was graced with the hawtness known as Alexander Skarsgard who plays a 1,000 year old ultra hot badass Viking vampire, Eric Northman (he spent much of Season 1 in a horrible blond pageboy wig....seen below)
