Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

Since this was my first time ever making cupcakes I was looking for an easy , no fuss recipe.  I stumbled upon Martha Stewart’s ‘One Bowl Chocolate Cupcake’ recipe and was I glad. The recipe called for buttermilk but I substituted that with a combination of yoghurt and milk.

Chocolate Cupcakes

¾ cup Cocoa Powder
1 ½ cups All Purpose Flour
1 ½ cups Sugar
1 ½ tsp Baking Soda
¾ tsp Baking Powder
¾ tsp Salt
2 Eggs (large)
¾ cup warm water
½ cup Yoghurt
¼ cup milk            (or ¾ cup buttermilk instead of yoghurt and milk)
3 tbsp Oil (Vegetable or Sunflower)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to180C.

Line your muffin tin with the cupcake liners.  Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. To the dry mixture, add eggs one at a time and mix well. 

Then add the milk, yoghurt, oil, vanilla essence and mix well, till everything is incorporated and you get a smooth batter.

Spoon the batter into the paper lined muffin cups and bake for about 20 mins.

Vanilla Butter cream Frosting

I can’t believe how easy it is to make this frosting. Also, I did this with a manual whisk which made my arms ache, but if you have an electric whisk then it’s no effort at all. If you’re doing this manually it helps if butter is melted. Since the sugar and butter have to mix well and cream together you have to use icing or powdered sugar.

What I Do: I usually cut the butter into cubes and microwave in a microwavable bowl for about 15mins. This makes the whisking a lot easier.

3 ½ cups powdered Sugar
1 cup Butter (225gms)
5 tbsp Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Pinch of Salt

In a medium sized bowl whisk the butter and vanilla extract. Add in the sugar gradually at about ¼ cup at a time so that it creams together nicely.  Add a tsp of milk at a time and give it a vigorous whisk, if using electric beater, beat on a high speed.

I wanted the frosting to be pink, just for fun, so added a few drops of red food colouring till I got the desired colour.

To decorate the cupcakes, I put the frosting in a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle. My daughter and I had fun decorating the cupcakes.

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