9.24.2008

Chocoalte Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Frosting

My sister's birthday is today, so to celebrate, I made my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe from this magazine. Of course birthday cupcakes need frosting, so I used a plain vanilla recipe. But with Tammy-proportions of vanilla added, it had a strange gray color.... so I added brown sugar to balance it out. A happy accident since it tasted even better!
Chocolate Cupcakes
Do not double. Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Line muffin pan.

Combine & melt:
8 TB Butter (that's 1 stick)
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
½ C (or 1.5 oz) dutch-processed cocoa

Whisk:
¾ C (3.75 oz) Flour (all purpose works fine, or a blend of cake and all-purpose)
½ tea Baking soda
¾ tea Baking powder

Whisk:
2 eggs
½ - ¾ C (<5.25>
1 tea vanilla
½ tea salt

Add chocolate mixture to egg mixture, mix until incorporated.

Sift in flour mixture and:

½ C (4 oz) Nancy’s plain honey yogurt
(or sour cream)

Divide batter into muffin pans.

Bake 18-20 minutes, until skewer comes out clean.

Cool before frosting.

Brown Sugar Frosting
Now I wasn't delighted at the finished frosting (too sweet for my taste), but it had a good consistency. I might have to tweak the recipe later... any ideas?

1/3 C melted butter
3 C powdered sugar
vanilla
2 TB milk
2-3 tea brown sugar
(for color and extra flavor)

The original recipe (from a dusty 1970s ? Better Homes & Gardens cookbook) has you blending the butter and sugar first. Can you say clumpy? You go to all the trouble of de-clumpifying the powdered sugar just to make butter-sugar pellets?

On my next attempt, I think I will stick to mixing the melted butter (otherwise the clumps), vanilla and the milk first, then slowly adding sifted powdered sugar until the correct consistency. Or, I might ditch it and make this recipe for caramel buttercream...

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