I’m sure you know Divya. You cant miss all the beautiful cakes that she is baking these days. However I don’t think many of you know the fact that we were batch mates in college :). Yes, we were batch mates for 5 years. But I guess we’ve talked more in the past 1 or 2 years, mainly through our comments on each others’ blog, rather than those 5 years. Sometimes when you look at it, life is so strange right? 7-8 years back if you asked me about cooking, I would be staring at you as if you were an alien. And if you asked me about blogging, I would pretend I didn’t hear you because I didn’t even know what that meant. Leave alone blogging I didn’t even know about the existence of Google! Ya now you are staring at me as if am an alien ;)
Honestly speaking, I’m generally scared of all technology stuff. Am very bad at it. So to hide my ignorance and fear about handling new technology, I decided to protest against it :) Ok, now that’s one honest thing about me. Miriam gave me an honest badge and tagged me to write 10 honest things about myself. I usually write only honest stuff here, I don’t lie to you, so nothing new to write about ;) Thanks Miriam, appreciate it a lot. Thanks again for all the sweet things you’ve written about me :)
Ok, now back to Divya, these days we talk at least once in a week or so. It’s all because of food & blogging. Divs blog is celebrating second birthday and she has an event for the same, “The best chocolate cake event”. I thought I should participate in this, after all she is my batch mate and a fellow Theresian right :)? Also I liked the book she is giving away as a present. Divs, don’t worry abut shipping to Bahrain, you can send it to my Cochin address ;) Once again wishing your blog many more wonderful birthday’s! All the best dear! Divs, hope you like this.
The cupcake recipe is from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook and the icing recipe is Hershey’s “perfectly chocolate” chocolate icing. Like all other cake recipes here, this too is an easy one. This is a one-bowl chocolate cupcake recipe. Put together all the ingredients, mix it and the batter is ready. Sounds easy right? These are pretty moist & not too sweet, even with the icing. I also gave this cupcakes to one of our friends, when we visited them and they enjoyed it very much :). Hope you too will like it.
Here is the recipe:
For the cupcake
- Plain flour (maida)- 2 1/2 cups
Dutch-process cocoa powder – 1 1/4 cups (refer notes)
Baking soda – 2 1/2 tsp
Baking powder – 1 1/4 tsp
Salt – 1 1/4 tsp - Sugar – 2 1/2 cups
- Eggs – 2 whole + 1 egg yolk
Milk – 1 1/4 cups
Oil – 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp (I used sunflower oil)
Vanilla essence – 1 1/4 tsp
Warm water – 1 1/4 cups
Preheat oven to 175 C, 10 minutes before baking. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pans with paper cups. Into the bowl of an electric mixer, sift together number 1 ingredients. Add sugar to that and give it a stir. Attach bowl to mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; add the number 3 ingredients. Beat on low speed until smooth and combined, about 3 minutes; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake in the preheated oven, until a skewer inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean, around 20-25 mins. Let them cool completely before frosting.
Icing recipe
- Butter – 1/2 cup
Icing sugar – 3 cups
Cocoa powder – 2/3 cup
Milk – 1/3 cup
Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. This qty gives about 2 cups icing.
Notes: I only made half of the cupcake & icing qty mentioned above. I got 15 cupcakes. I used Hershey’s cocoa powder for both the cake & icing. It was the regular cocoa powder & not dutch processed. You can also mix the batter using a hand blender. I poured around 3 tbsp batter in each muffin case. My cupcakes were ready in 20 mins. You can store it in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. You can also make this as a layered cake or sheet cake.
For a layered cake, use two 8 inch round cake pans and bake for about 40-45 mins. (as given in the Martha Stewart’s Baking handbook)
For a sheet cake, use 13-by-9 inch pan and bake for 45-50 mins. (as given in the Martha Stewart’s Baking handbook)
Check out other cupcake recipes:
