Naked Chocolate Cupcakes!

When we can't think of what else to do, we bake. 

This recipe is courtesy of joyofbaking.com. Check it out here.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (50 grams) Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1 cup (240 ml) boiling hot water

11/3cups(175 grams) all purposeflour

2 teaspoonsbaking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsaltedbutter, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated whitesugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons purevanillaextract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly butter, or line 16 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a small bowl stir until smooth the boiling hot water and the cocoa powder. Let cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Then in the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a handmixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat only until incorporated. Then add the cooled cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.

Fill each muffin cup two-thirds full with batter andbakeforabout 16-20 minutes or until risen, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing. You can either spread the frosting on the cupcakes with a small spatula or if piping, use a large Wilton 1M open star tip to make lovely swirls.

I think they turned out pretty well for the most part...

The ingredients are simple enough, and the cupcakes turned out soft and moist enough. The recipe was supposed to make about 16, but I managed to shove the batter into 12 cupcakes.

So, we didn't exactly cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, and as a result, we got uniquely marbled cupcakes. :p Electric mixers are recommended for this recipe.

[Edit: I think the white spots are actually flour clumps.]

Also, it wasn't the smartest idea to let Renée butter the muffin tin with tissue paper. Half of the cupcakes ended up with little scraps and fibres of tissue paper on their outsides.

Would I bake this again? Yeah, the recipe is pretty good, and maybe I'll try the frosting next time too. I'll just have to get a KitchenAid mixer first.

Much thanks to Sheila and Renée for helping out!