Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

This recipe on Hersheys.com is called Deep Dark Chocolate Cake and Especially Dark Chocolate Cake and Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake.

Yep. All three chocolate cakes are the same recipe - just with slightly different frosting.

I substituted boiling water with a cup of leftover coffee I made for breakfast in a French press. And look what I found: Black Magic Cake!

I should call these cupcakes "Especially Perfectly Chocolate Deep Dark Black Magic Cup Cakes."

Enough with the names. Now with how they tasted. Exactly what the name said. They were especially dark and perfectly chocolate and black magic little cakes. But the frosting brought them to another level of perfection. I melted 2 cups of dark (72%) chocolate chips and beat it with a stick of butter and a little bit more sugar and coffee.



Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup cocoa powder (More cocoa powder! Natural - not Dutch process.)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (I reduced the amount of sugar by 1/2 cup.)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used light tasting olive oil.)
• 1 cup milk (I used soy milk.)
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
• 1 cup strong black coffee

Directions

1. Adjust the oven racks to the upper third and lower third. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two muffin pans with liners.
2. In a large bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and baking powder together.
3. In another bowl, beat sugar, eggs, oil, milk and vanilla extract together with a whisk.
4. Stir flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Add coffee. Stir until combined.
5. Pour the (very watery) batter into the prepared pans. Up to 2/3 for each cupcake. (I first poured the batter into a liquid measuring cup with a spout. Then pour from the measuring cup to the pans.)
6. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes. Rotate and switch the pans about 12 minutes through baking. Make 28 cupcakes.

Dark Chocolate Frosting

• 2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (I used Guittard 72% Chocolate.)
• 1 stick butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup confectioner sugar
• 1/4 cup strong black coffee

1. Melt chocolate chips using your preferred method. (Mine used to be in a microwave. But I don't have one now so I just melt them in a saucepan over very low flame. I turned off the burner when the chocolate was halfway melted and let the rest melt from residue heat. I didn't bother with double boiler.) Let the melted chocolate cool.
2. With an electric mixer, beat butter with confectioner sugar. Add the melted chocolate. Mix well. Add half the coffee. If the frosting is still too thick add more coffee.