Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

hocolate Mint Cupcakes

I am not a fan of the chocolate mint flavor collaboration. However, I do know that it is something that is very popular and a guilty pleasure for most. Therefore, I decided to create chocolate mint cupcakes with some added flavor for those who love it. I hope that you enjoy them. 

Ingredients

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp peppermint extract
1 cup boiling water

1 4 oz. bar of Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate 

Get baking!

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Not preheating  your oven can cause you to miscalculate baking time, which will lead to your food not being cooked thoroughly. 

2. In a large bowl whisk together all of your dry ingredients (i.e. sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and soda, and salt).

3. Add in wet ingredients (i.e. extracts, milk, eggs, oil). Beat all of these ingredients together. 

4. Once you have beat all of these ingredients for about 2 minutes, add in boiling water. When you add the water your batter will become thin and less thick. Don't worry! It is suppose to be that way. It is going to give your cupcake a nice moist texture once they are finished. This method applies mostly to chocolate cake. You could also use coffee. 

5. Lastly, to give your cake some extra chocolaty flavor, take the chocolate bar and melt it by microwave or placing a metal bowl over a pot of hot water, while stirring consistently until melted. Once melted add chocolate to the batter.

6. Fill each cupcake paper 2/3 of the way and bake for 15 minutes. 

7. Before Icing, allow to cool thoroughly so the icing does not melt. A good rule of thumb before icing a cupcake or cake is to place it in the refrigerator so that it will chill. This will make it easier for the icing to apply to the cake easier and cause less crumbs from the cake to develop.  

Icing recipe

3 cups of powdered sugar

1 stick of unsalted butter

2 tsp of peppermint extract

1 tsp of vanilla extract

2 tbsp of whipping cream (preferably but you can use regular milk if needed)

The step is quite simple add all ingredients first and whisk together and let the whipping cream be the last to blend in mixture. Make sure you stir it in slowly to make sure that your icing does not come out too runny. If necessary slowly add more. 

Once the consistency of the icing is to your liking apply to the cupcake and enjoy!

For an added bonus, garnish with chocolate mint leaf, crumbled chocolate mint candies, just don't garnish with a Whopper like I did. They were just lying around and wanted the added effect.