What a Shock!

I have news. I actually baked cupcakes! After I realized that this blog was failing, I decided I'd better start baking. I didn't make tropical cupcakes as my previous post implied...I made chocolate cupcakes instead! Let me tell you...these cupcakes were a hit! Everybody at work (plus the Boy) seemed to really like them! Not to brag but one of my managers said they should be illegal. I'm thinking she was exaggerating a bit but I'm still going to feel good about myself. Haha.

The cupcakes that went over sooo well were a chocolate cupcake with an orange cream cheese frosting, topped with a piece of of Lindt Dark Chocolate Intense Orange chocolate. I made the cake part of the cupcakes from scratch (the chocolate part!) and I found a super easy recipe online. Not only was it super easy, it was super delicious! I'm thinking anytime I make chocolate cupcakes, it will be my go-to recipe. I'll never make chocolate cupcakes from a box mix again! Not that I made many cupcakes before but you catch my drift.

The great part about the recipe I found is that there is no eggs or butter. I know it sounds weird to not have butter or eggs but the recipe is so delicious you don't even notice.

The chocolate cupcake recipe:

2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder)
3/4 cup oil
1 1/2 cups water (I substituted one cup of chocolate milk for one cup of water...so it was 1/2 cup of water, 1 cup chocolate milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons vinegar (sounds weird but you can't even taste it) plus when it touched the baking soda, it fizzed in the bowl! :)

Mix all the ingredients together until moist and well-blended. Put cupcake liners in a cupcake tin and fill 1/2 - 3/4 full of batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Ta-da! all done with that! Now it's just time to let the cupcakes cool.

The frosting was cream cheese frosting from a can. I used Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Cream Cheese frosting and added orange extract to make it..well, orange-flavored. I spooned out all the frosting from the can and put it in a bowl and then added the orange extract and mixed it all together. I just put in 1/2 teaspoon at a time and kept tasting it until it got to an orange-factor that I deemed delicious. I then tried to be a little fancy and scooped the frosting in a make-shift pastry bag (ziploc bag with the corner cut out..lol) and frosted the cupcakes that way. Learning experience: Frosting the cupcakes fancy-like uses a ton of frosting. I ran out of frosting and had to frost the last few normally. Now I know. I was in a little bit of a rush (it being a work night and all), and so I put some of the cupcakes in the fridge so they'd cool faster and it worked very well, I must say. I knew better than to try and frost cupcakes while they were still warm.

Last, I broke the Lindt chocolate bars into the pre-determined squares and just squished the pieces into the cupcakes (one square per cupcake) so they would stay put. I put the bars in the fridge so they would break easier and wouldn't melt. It was 80-90 degrees outside, after all.

The yield for this cupcake recipe was supposed to be 24...however I only got 22 out it. Not a big deal to me because it wasn't for any event in particular. Just felt like baking.

Well, there it is. My second baking attempt, first successful one. Now that I know I'm not a complete baking failure, I have a feeling I'll be doing more baking :) Until next time...

Fire away!

Pictures for you! FINALLY.