Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Chocolate Cupcakes For Black Friday



This time of the year is so crazy when you work retail. My workplace started playing Christmas music the day after Halloween, making it hard not to get into the holiday mood early. I've finished my Christmas shopping, oh yeah that's right. I had to work black friday, but I'm was off by 9am so I might a well enjoy the deals, (wink, wink). Working black friday can be pretty chaotic, especially for black friday first timers. I wanted to bake something nice for my co workers on this intense busy day, so i decided Chocolate Mint Cupcakes would be perfect! I had Chasing Delicious's  recipe already in my bookmarks, there's a lot of "Need to try" recipes there.
I found adorable Martha Stewart cupcake liners at TJ Max for $1.99. I can not resist a good deal. Plus they were red which is the color that all the associates at my store have to wear so they were too perfect.
The cupcakes I made were, admittedly, not the prettiest I have ever made, my first dozen I put too much batter, following the recipe that said fill ht liners to just over the brim, (don't worry I'll fix that when I post the recipe at the bottom of this post), and the second dozen didn't have enough batter so they're quite small. But they're still really good, so I still consider them successful. The frosting was light and fluffy and not too pepperminty. I wish I would have chopped my chips a little but they weren't too big.
The recipe I got off of Chasing Delicious was kind of confusing, switching between ounces and cups for dry ingredients that did not make sense, but I'm putting what I put in my cupcakes on here.
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Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
makes 2 dozen 


for the cupcakes
1 cup cocoa powder
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter, (softened)
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs, (room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, (finely chopped)


for the frosting
2 sticks of unsalted butter, (softened)
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line your muffin pan with paper liners.
Sift together the cocoa, flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
Add the eggs on at a time and mix well.
Add both extracts and mix well.
Add half the dry mixture in with the wet and mix until well combined.
Mix in the buttermilk.
Add the remaining dry mixture wight the chopped chocolate into the batter until just combined.
Spoon the batter into the lined muffin pan about 3/4 full.
Bake for 20-43 minutes or until a toothpick comes out barley clean.
Let cool and prepare the frosting by mixing all the ingredients until they form frosting.
Once the cupcakes are cool, using a piping back to frost the cupcakes.