Chocolate Cupcakes With Decadent Chocolate Frosting
By: Lemon Drop
Published: Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 6:54am

Ingredients




WHAT YOU NEED
1/2 cup cocoa powder (I use Fry's)
1 cup boiling hot water
 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup fine white sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips (we used milk chocolate chips and they w
FROSTING:
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (1 square of baking chocolate is 1 oz)
2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
 cups sifted icing sugar (do NOT omit sifting!)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preparation

1 MAKE IT 2 PREHEAT oven to 375 F 3 LINE 12 muffin cups with paper liners 4 MIX cocoa and hot water together in small bowl. Let stand or place in fridge for faster cooling 5 IN MEDIUM BOWL, combine flour, baking powder and salt 6 IN LARGE BOWL, beat butter and sugar with hand-mixer until light and fluffy (1-2 minutes medium speed) 7 ADD EGGS, mix and scrape down sides during mixing if required 8 BLEND in vanilla extract 9 ADD flour mixture and blend until combined 10 ADD cooled cocoa/water mixture until blended and batter is smooth. 11 STIR in chocolate chips 12 FILL muffins cups 3/4 with batter 13 BAKE 18-20 minutes . Use toothpick in center of muffin to check for doneness 14 COOL on wire rack (should be ready for frosting in 1/2 hr) 15 FROSTING: 16 MELT chocolate over double boiler and let cool 17 BEAT butter until smooth (1 -2 min) with hand-mixer 18 ADD icing sugar and mix til combined 19 ADD vanilla extract and melted chocolate 20 BEAT 2-3 minutes medium speed 21 You can either spread icing with cake spatula, regular knife or pipe it for pretty swirls as I did. I used a wilton IM star tip for these. 22 These make incredibly moist and rich cupcakes. You will be hooked after the first bite! 23 See My Blog: Lemon Drop  for pics too! **