Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

How was everyone's Thanksgiving? Hope you had a wonderful time with your family and friends.!
Working in retail, my Thanksgiving was cut short. I had to be at work at 10pm that night.
I wanted to bake something to bring for my co-workers and I found the recipe and had to try them.
I know, I know, another chocolate raspberry cupcake?
But let me tell you, when I tell you that these were good, they were good!
The frosting is made with fresh raspberries and tastes so good, I couldn't stop snacking on the leftovers. I got a super sugar high.
The cupcakes are slightly dry and the frosting was slightly liquid-y but the two together was the perfect combination.
If you love a chocolate-raspberry combo, like you all know I do, these are a must try.
I used dark chocolate coco powder instead of the coco powder that the recipe calls for and used Ghirardelli chocolate. I also used about a half cup- to a full cup more of powdered sugar to try to get a thicker consistency of the frosting, it was still a little watery but I actually ran out of powdered sugar. The last difference in my cupcakes versus the original recipe by Two Peas & Their Pod  was that I didn't have a fine sieve to get the raspberry seeds out of the frosting, but I didn't really think it made that much of a difference.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

makes 1 dozen cupcakes

For the Cupcakes:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, (cubed)
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, (finely chopped)
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs, (room temperature)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream

For the Frosting:
3/4 cup unsalted butter, (softened)
2 cups powdered sugar
1cup fresh raspberries
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a muffin tin with paper liners and set aside.
Place butter, chocolate and cocoa powder in a medium heat proof bowl.
Microwave in 30 second spurts on 50% power, stirring in between, until the butter and chocolate are melted and the mixture is smooth.
Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
Set aside.
In your mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, then add the sugar, vanilla, and salt, whisking until well combined.
Add the chocolate mixture and continue to whisk until combined.
Sift 1/3 of the flour mixture into the bowl and when that's combined, add the Greek yogurt.
Sift the rest of the dry ingredients and combine, the batter will be thick.
Divide the batter evenly among the paper liners in your prepared muffin tins, filling each about 2/3 full.
Bake 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Allow to cool in pan a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
While the cupcakes are cooling, make the raspberry buttercream frosting.
In a food processor or blender, puree the raspberries.
Pour the raspberries through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids, to remove the seeds.
Place butter, half of the powdered sugar, and raspberry puree into a mixing bowl.
Beat over low speed until well mixed.
Add the other half of the sugar, increase speed to medium.
Mix until light and fluffy.
Frost cooled cupcakes with the raspberry buttercream and top with a fresh raspberry, if desired.

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.
Don't forget you can follow me on twitter at LearnAsYouGo_ to read whats going on with the blog between posts and you can also follow my personal twitter account KristenxBeth .

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.