Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes are one of my favorite desserts. And trust me when I say, it’s hard to find a recipe that tastes like a really good devils food cake cupcake and this recipe does the trick exactly. These were moist, chocolately and oh so delicious. Now, please note that I show my cupcakes iced, but don’t give a recipe for icing. The reason? I LOVE Pillsbury icing. No, it’s not organic, all natural ingredients, blah, blah, but it tastes amazing. And once in a while it’s not going to hurt a soul. So, needless to say these are iced with Pillsbury. Judge if you want.

On a second random note, as I was in the midst of making these, I realized the sour cream I had, had expired. Crap. Now what? I used milk and lemon juice as a substitute and it worked like a charm. When in doubt google what items can be used as substitutes for all kinds of ingredients. It has saved me on more than one occasion. Now, get out there and make some chocolate cupcakes.

Delicious Chocolate Cupcakes  |  10.17.16

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Step 2: Grease muffin tin or line with muffin liners.
Step 3: In a large bowl, mix together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Step 4: Crack in the egg, spoon in the sour cream, and pour in the oil and the vanilla. Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined.
Step 5: Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, about halfway full.
Step 6: Place muffin tin in oven and bake for 15-18 minutes.
Step 7: Transfer muffin tin to a wire rack to let cupcakes cool completely before icing.

recipe courtesy of Oh Sweet Day

Need a creative way to serve cupcakes to your guests over Halloween?
I love coming up with fun ideas on how to display food for parties. And for dessert it’s always fun to do individual servings to your guests. Plus, it’s just simpler. There’s no bringing out a full dessert, deciding who wants to cut into it, serving it out to each guest and wasting valuable time that you could be spending enjoying conversation. With individual servings, they’re ready to go!

With these cupcakes I’ve even placed them out at the beginning of the meal as to entice you to sit down and enjoy your full meal. But, you could also just have these set to the side to bring them out as your ready.

With Halloween only 2 weeks away, I thought it would be fun to theme out some cute ways to display the cupcakes. I’m a huge fan of cupcake toppers for any occasion. The ones shown are perfect for a Halloween party or dinner party and just add an extra creative element to the whole look. These and more can be found at The Dotted Line Party. Once you have cupcake toppers on hand you’ll also find they have many uses; hanging tags, table confetti and more! I also added black food coloring to the icing to make it even more dark and creepy. I think it worked quite well! You can find a variety of food coloring colors at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. If you haven’t tried anything but the drops from the grocery store, you’ll be amazed by the bright, rich colors you can get.

For the place setting, I’ve chosen a gold and black theme for one and a brighter color scheme for the other. Play around with the colors you already have and then add in accent pieces as needed. For instance, I added these farm house napkins that had black and white printed animals on them. They have nothing to do with Halloween, but I thought it was a great juxtaposition against the skeleton hand and skull in the background. In the other place setting, I used a simple white plate, added one of my bright Fiestaware dishes and simple patterned napkin. Again, the napkin isn’t Halloween, but the colors help to bring that element in. In the background, you’ll see I used a glass milk jar and a little skeleton holding out the straw. Obviously, not really the purpose of the skeleton, but use your imagination when it comes to decorating. There are all kinds of multi-use decorations out there!