Our Favorite Birthday Cupcakes
Cook Time
20 to 25 minutes
Rating
0 out of 5 stars
(0)
Ingredients
~32 cupcakes
- 3 oz fine-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
- 1 ½ cups hot brewed coffee [or cold press, heated]
- 3 cups sugar
- 2 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups unsweetened cocoa powder [not Dutch process]
- 2 tsp baking soda
- ¾ tsp baking powder
- 1 ¼ tsp salt
- 3 large eggs
- ¾ cup canola oil
- 1 ½ cups well-shaken buttermilk
- ¾ tsp pure vanilla extract
- 3 sticks unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, or 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- food coloring, if desired
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Preparation
Step 1
Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.
Step 2
Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Step 3
In another large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer until thickened slightly and lemon-colored [about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer].
Step 4
Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well.
Step 5
Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed, until just combined well. Chill batter for 30 minutes.
Step 6
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the wells of your pans with fluted paper liners.
Step 7
Divide batter between pans, filling about 3/4 full. Bake in middle of oven 20 to 25 minutes, until a tester inserted in center comes out almost clean, with just a teensy bit of crumb attached.
Step 8
Cool cupcakes completely in pans on racks. Remove and frost.
Step 9
Beat the butter, cream, vanilla, [or vanilla bean seeds] and salt together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium high speed until smooth, 1-2 minutes.
Step 10
Reduce the speed to medium low, slowly add the powdered sugar and beat until incorporated and smooth, 4-6 minutes.
Step 11
Add food coloring a few drops at a time, if using, until desired color is reached.
Step 12
Increase the mixer speed to medium high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, 5-10 minutes.
Step 13
Save recipe for the next time?
Chef's notes
The first couple times making cupcakes from this recipe I had trouble with them not rising well in the oven, but they tasted so delicious I kept trying them. I realized that if I bumped up the oven temperature from 300 to 350, and chilled the batter for at least 30 minutes, I would get beautiful cupcakes with a perfectly round top.
This makes a lot of cupcakes – almost 32.
The batter can be chilled overnight, if needed.
This buttercream makes enough icing for about 24 cupcakes. The cake batter makes about 30ish cupcakes, so you may have to double this, unless you put a very thin layer of frosting on each cupcake.
