Monday, June 14, 2010

The BEST Chocolate Cupcakes EVER - Recipe

The BEST Chocolate Cupcakes EVER!!!
Don't they look amazingly perfectly chocolatey??

Like I promised here is my recipe that I have FINALLY perfected to be my GO-TO chocolate cupcake recipe. I will never use another one again for just chocolate. If I am looking for a chocolate coconut, chocolate chipotle, chocolate cinnamon well that is a different story but these are hands down the best I have ever made according to, well, me and my #1 taste tester, my hubby. I adapted these from the Chocolate Pomegranate Cupcakes that I made that I had originally adapted from How To Eat A Cupcakes, POM Wonderful chocolate cupcakes.
Took me a while to find my "one and only" chocolate cupcake recipe but this is totally IT!! Now to find that Vanilla one....

So here is the recipe!! If you have any questions or any snafu's while making these or don't have the same results and chocolate cupcake epiphany that I did feel free to email me and I can try to help you out so you too can be in chocolate cupcake heaven!!
acupfullofcake@gmail.com

Shanna


Best Chocolate Cupcakes Ever 

By a Cup Full Of Cake

Makes 28 cupcakes

Dry Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder ( Dutch process like Droste or another GOOD brand)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate melted and cooled (cooled for about 15 min make sure its still melted though don’t want it to harden back up)
½ cup plus 1 tbsp water, heated to boiling ( have a kettle of water on the stove boiling ready to go)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs room temp
2 tablespoons vinegar (not wine vinegar)
1 tablespoon vanilla

 Instructions
This can be done with a stand mixer or by hand with a hand mixer or whisk but it is more of a 2 bowl method than one if going the hand mixing route

1. Preheat oven to 350F with rack in the center.
2. Place paper baking cups in regular sized muffin tins, spray edges around 
cups lightly with cooking spray. If you have a small 6 cup muffin tin and you only
get 27 or 28 cupcakes fill the rest of the wells halfway with water and no baking
cup
3. Whisk together the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt)
in a large bowl.
4. In a large bowl or bowl of stand mixer whisk eggs till slightly thickened and a pale
color
5. Add in the milk, vanilla, oil and vinegar and whisk/beat well
6. Add in the melted and cooled chocolate and whisk/beat until combined well
7. Either add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients OR the wet into the flour and mix
just to combine. Add in the boiling water and mix again just to combine. Scrape
down the sides of the bowl with a spatula to make sure all the dry ingredients are
incorporated
8. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups
9. Bake 15-18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and free
 of crumbs or the cupcake tops bounce back when lightly pressed. Mine baked for
18 minutes.
10. Let cool for 5 min in pans and then remove carefully to a wire cooling rack. Cool     completely before frosting


My notes:
Yes there is ONLY baking soda in these but it works. Do not try to add baking powder. I know you will look at this and think, “ don’t baked goods need baking powder or both powder and soda?” well yes, sometimes. It’s the vinegar that reacts with the soda, which helps with the proper leavening of the cake. These totally ROCK. They’re moist, dense, perfect texture and taste. Even 4 days after having been in my fridge, which normally dries them out, but they were still perfect. I have made them a few times now once I got 26 or 27 cupcakes and another time 28. Just depends on how full you fill the cups. I use a #16 ice cream/batter scoop to fill mine. One full scoop works and if I have  batter leftover and some look to be less filled with batter than I try to even out with a spoon and add in more batter that way. I also like SLAM the cupcake pans down on my counter a few times ( just lift evenly and let drop) to help get some of the air bubbles out. I am not sure where I read this technique but it works and well its kind of fun to make the noise. Unless you bake while your baby/kids/husband/significant other is sleeping. They might not like it.

Good luck and trust me you will LOVE this recipe. I do!!





24 comments:

  1. thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe :)

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  2. You're welcome. I love sharing great recipes!!

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  3. These look lovely! I've just made chocolate brownie cupcakes (from Martha Stewart) so i'm always on the look out for chocolate recipes :)

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  4. Thank you for sharing your cupcake recipe. And you are right, cake does not need baking powder in them. Sometime recipes are overleavened as people who make up the recipe throw it in for insurance. Sometimes it is there to make a cake flat. But in this case yours works because the two teaspoons of baking soda will both leaven and tenderize chocolate cake. This is especially needed for chocolate cakes as chocolate is a toughener and a drier to a cake batter. Yep, leaveners are tenderizers for a cake too. I found this out the hard way when I insisted on perfectly leavening my chocolate cupcakes and reduced the baking soda and left in the baking powder. They were so dry and tough you could hardly chew them. I did another batch right away and put back in the baking soda. The result was a nice, moist tender cupcake. So you are on the right track. For "fun" sometime make a batch with just baking powder and one with just baking soda. You will be amazed at the difference.

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  5. I made these yesterday. Absolutely amazing. They were so moist and chocolatey. Thank you so much for sharing!!

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  6. I just happened upon your blog. Love your great recipes. http://moogieland.blogspot.com/

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  7. Thanks for explaining that Linda.. I bet many home bakers don't realize the difference that occurs using baking soda vs. baking powder.

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  8. Do you think this batter would make a good layer cake??

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  9. Nancy
    Yes it would. Usually any recipe that yields 24 cupcakes is good for two laterd 9" round cake. So I would think it would be good in either 8x3" round pans or 9x2". Just make sure you grease and flour just the bottom of the pans or use parchment paper and the baking time would be 30-35 min. My recipe has made 24-30 cupcakes depending on how full I fill the cups so I would think this would make for an excellent cake!
    Good luck!

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  10. Thanks so much, I can't wait to give it a try. Last week I had my first "Sprinkles Bakery" cupcake. It was a red velvet cupcake. It was horrible. Very dry and worst of all, the baking powder taste was so strong I couldn't eat it. I had heard so many wonderful things about their cupcakes, but I'm not impressed. They should have this recipe!

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  11. can i change the vegetable oil to corn oil?
    tq...

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  12. Anna
    I think you could I use canola of vegetable oil because its essentially flavorless and healthier but I don't see why not? I probably wouldn't do peanut or olive oil though.

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  13. Nancy - I have heard that Sprinkles cupcakes aren't very good and they have shady business practices. They go around suing small bakeries for things like if their name is too close to Sprinkles etc. Not sure why a cupcake bakery needs a lawyer on retainer just to sue small businesses but they would get money from me. I'd rather support local than a company that is sue happy. With dry cupcakes. ha ha

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  14. I love how you took the top part of the Oreo off when you put it in the liner ~ great idea!
    These look amazing!

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  15. thanks everyone

    stay tuned for a vanilla cupcake recipe that is JUST as good. I have been working on it and it will be my first baking blog as soon as I come back from my self appointed maternity baking leave. ha ha

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  16. Yes, I make this recipe and it's really exquisite.
    The very best chocolate cupcakes recipe for me.

    Thanks.

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  17. Okay, my question is can you adapt this recipe to bake into 12 in. layer cake??? That's the size I use for my kids cakes, but I have yet to find a recipe that is both fantastic AND big enough for 12' pans. I'd love to try this one as it sounds mouth watering!

    And, while I"m at it, I"d like to know if I could multiply the Swiss Meringue buttercream to make 28 cups??? We love frosting... ;)

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  18. Hi Mom24
    A 12 inch cake takes about 7.5 cups of batter and since my recipe makes 28-30 cupcakes or 2 9" cakes I would say to double the recipe and you should be fine for 2 12" layers

    As for 28 cups of frosting?? Holy smokes that's a lot. My recipe makes 5-6 cups so I guess make 4x the recipe if you have a giant Hobart mixer. If you are just using a regular Kitchenaid like most home bakers have, then you will be making the recipe 4 times. Hope it works out for you!

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  19. I have tried this recipe with and without the water and when it had water they looked like volcanos and without it they were dry (I think I baked them too long). Is the batter mean't to be thick or liquid? Also how do you get yours to rise like that because they look great!

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  20. I have never had a problem at all. Maybe overmixed, you need to have the water in, don't leave it out. Its a thicker batter. Check your oven temp with an oven thermometer not just the one on the oven display panel.

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  21. Ok thanks I will try these again!

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  22. How much should we fill the cupcake liners, do they rise a lot?

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  23. 2/3-3/4 full. They do rise but not crazy high

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