Our Favorite Birthday Cupcakes
Cook Time
20 to 25 minutes
Rating
0 out of 5 stars
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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
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.