Hello from Syracuse! Yep, I'm travelling again. But, this should be my last trip for October, and then..... we move into our new house! I'm so, so, so excited that I can't even hardly talk about it for fear I'll jinx it all. We have 22 more days until we get our keys, because we close on our house on HALLOWEEN! How fun is that?!
So, before we leave our cute little neighborhood, I wanted to invite the neighbor kids over again to play in my kitchen. This time we frosted a mini chocolate cupcake with the creamiest of chocolate buttercreams and then poked cute little candy pieces to transform them into silly spiders. And silly little spiders they are, indeed. So fun!
An amazing note about the frosting recipe below: The recipe calls for evaporated milk to incorporate the powdered sugar. I didn't realize that I was completely out of evaporated milk, so when I opened my fridge to substitute with 2%, our bottle of coffee creamer caught my eye. White Chocolate Macadamia. Um, yes please! So the girls and I executively decided to swap the creamer for the evaporated milk. And then we poked our fingers into the frosting to give it a taste. You need to do this. Holy moly, it was flipping amazing. Like, beyond yummy. I imagine it would work with just about any flavor coffee creamer, so if you try it, please let us know!!
I Heart Buttercream,
Click here for a printable version of this recipe
Mini Chocolate Cupcakes
adapted from Bakerella
1 1/2 c. (192g) flour
2/3 c. (64g) cocoa
1 1/3 c. (268g) sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/3 c. oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2/3 c. milk
2/3 c. hot water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a mini cupcake pan with papers.
In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Stir in eggs, oil, vanilla, and milk and mix until combined. Stir in hot water until combined. Pour batter into mini cupcake pan, filling each liner about 2/3 full. Bake for 15 minutes, or until they pass the toothpick test. Allow to cool completely before frosting. Cool and decorate. Makes approx. 60 mini cupcakes.
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
2 3/4 c. (352g) powdered sugar
6 Tbsp. (36g) unsweetened cocoa powder
6 Tbsp. butter, room temp.
5 Tbsp. evaporated milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
In a medium bowl, sift together the powdered sugar and cocoa, and set aside. Using your mixer's whisk attachment, in a large bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in sugar mixture alternately with evaporated milk. Blend in vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. If necessary, adjust consistency with more milk or powdered sugar.
To Assemble:
chocolate jimmies or other sprinkles
licorice strings
candy eyes or mini M&Ms
Pipe frosting onto cupcakes with an extra-large round tip. Dip frosted cupcake tops into jimmies or sprinkles to coat and to slightly flatten the frosting. Cut licorice strings into equal lengths for spider legs, about 2" each. Poke licorice strings into the frosting. Dot frosting or corn syrup onto the backs of candy eyes or M&Ms and place onto cupcake.
Those are silly spiders, not scary at all. And they look delicious, though I'm not sure I could overcome my dislike of spiders enough to eat them. OK, who am I kidding? I would totally eat those.
ReplyDeleteThey're super delicious, but ask Alycia about that frosting. It's a goodie from back in our roommate days :)
DeleteThese are too cool! Love them for Halloween. Congrats on your house too...that's so exciting!
ReplyDeleteUmmm, amazing! Made these at 9am this morning with my almost there year old, will definitely making the cake for her birthday in two weeks!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this recipe Manali! I needed one for a corporate function my son was catering. I didn’t even have time to taste test them ahead of time. My son and daughter tried them the night before the event and were hooked! I was so pleased because I don’t usually try new recipes without testing first. I had enough other tried and true cupcakes ready in case these did not work but they were a big hit. You rock!
ReplyDelete