Devil’s Food Cupcakes

Heading into Monday I decided some cupcakes for my co-workers were in order. This weekend the rest of my co-workers wrapped up the leadership retreat that I attended at the beginning of the year. Perhaps each of them had a remarkable experience, but just in case their experiences felt anything like mine, they are going to need some sweet relief.

Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
(modified from a Red Velvet recipe I found in my recipe box… which I’m sure I found on the internet somewhere)

Ingredients for the Batter:

• 3.5 cups cake flour, sifted
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs at room temperature
• 4 tablespoons water
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1.5 cups buttermilk (or 1.33 cups milk with 2 tablespoons of white vinegar, topped off with just enough milk to hit 1.5 cups liquid — this is what I did)
• 1.5 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 16 oz. of softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 2 cups sifted powdered sugar
•  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Making the Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit and set the oven racks to the top 1/3 and bottom 1/3 of the oven. Prepare 24 muffin tins with liners.

2. Sift flour and set aside.

3. If you are curdling your own milk in place of using buttermilk, mix that now and set aside.

4. In a large bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, cream butter and sugar about five minutes until it is light and fluffy. Then add the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time.

5. In a separate bowl, mix the water, cocoa and vanilla until smooth. Add to butter mixture.

6. Add salt to your milk or buttermilk mixture. Then add the 1/3 of the milk mixture and 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mix and repeat until all of the milk mix and the flour are added to the batter.

7. In a small bowl  combine the apple cider vinegar and the baking powder.  Add to the batter and mix well.

8. Stir in 8 oz. of chocolate chips into the batter (You can add more, if you want. I just like to save a little from the 12 oz. bag for snacking on, natch.)

9. Pour batter into the prepared muffin tins and bake in preheated oven for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cupcake. Make sure to switch the pans (from bottom rack to top, and from top rack to bottom) halfway through so they get evenly baked.

10. Once removed from the oven, cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pans. Wait until cool to frost.

Making the Frosting:

1. Cream together butter and cream cheese

2. Mix in vanilla

3. Gradually add the sugar

4. Pipe or spread frosting onto the cupcakes

Enjoy!