Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

I baked cupcakes for my friend Katie’s birthday, which was yesterday. As I carried the giant Tupperware full of cupcakes up the elevator to my friends’ apartment, the other person in the elevator asked me if the cupcakes were good. I laughed and said, “I hope so!” He then asked me if they were for a child’s birthday party – which I had to laugh at again. Why did the stranger in the elevator think these cupcakes were for a child? Maybe because of the bright coloured icing – combined with the fact that these are mini cupcakes, I’m sure.

Here are just some of the many advantages of mini cupcakes:

1. They look absolutely adorable.

2. You can eat them in a bite or two (remember when I went over why this is a good thing for a party when I made Mini Caprese Salad?) 

3. You’ll double the amount of cupcakes the recipe says it’s going to make – so great for sharing at a party where there will be lots of people.

4. Did I mention how cute they are? 

To make these Mini Chocolate Cupcakes, I used Martha Stewart’s recipe for Devil’s food cake and basic vanilla buttercream icing (I guess I’m going through a bit of a Martha Stewart phase right now – but she has great cupcake recipes!) I got to use my William Sonoma food paste set again that I bought for our Red Velvet Cupcakes for the icing – and I can’t get over how beautiful the colours turned out! 

The Recipes:

Devil’s Food Cupcakes

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

3/4 cup hot water

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream, room temperature

Combing the hot water with the cocoa

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners - or if you're using mini muffin trays and don't have mini muffin paper liners, grease well. Let me emphasize the well part. 

2. Boil water and allow to cool a little, and then whisk into cocoa until smooth.

3. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

4. Melt butter with sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to combine. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat until mixture is cooled, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

5. Add vanilla, then cocoa mixture, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the sour cream, and beating until just combined after each.

6. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 12 minutes for mini cupcakes, or 20 minutes for standard sized cupcakes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 15 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

7. To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Makes about 32 regular sized cupcakes, or 64 mini cupcakes.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

                   

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3 to 4 cups icing sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes.

2. With mixer on low speed, add 3 cups sugar, milk, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. If necessary, gradually add remaining 2 cups sugar to reach desired consistency.

3. If you want to create various shades of icing, divide into small bowls and leave some of the icing in the mixing bowl. This way you can always add more white icing to a colour you create if it turns out to be too dark. If you are using gel food paste, you will only need a tiny drop to create a vibrant colour – and then you can easily add more if you want your colour to be even darker or brighter.

Some notes about the cupcakes:

1. I was really excited to make mini cupcakes – but unfortunately, I didn’t have mini muffin cup paper liners. I greased the muffin trays, but they were still difficult to pop out of the trays once they were baked and I ruined a few in the process. I found that the ones that were smaller actually came out the easiest, so if you do decide to make mini cupcakes with no paper liners, I recommend really sticking to only filling the cups three-quarters full.

2. Martha calls for “coarse salt.” I suppose my sea salt is too coarse – because I thought maybe the salt would dissolve into the batter, but this was not the case. I wouldn’t say the salt ruined the cupcakes – but there definitely were a few bites where you would taste a salt crystal, which isn’t exactly what I was going for. So in future, I would not use the same coarse sea salt.

3. These cupcakes would be delicious with a chocolate frosting – something not too sweet. I went for buttercream because I wanted to dye the icing to look pretty, but if I was going purely for taste… chocolate frosting may have won out.

4. The other thing that can be a bit frustrating about mini cupcakes is that if you don’t have more than 2 mini muffin trays, you will have to do quite a few batches and wait while for the cupcakes to cool enough to remove from the trays before you can make your next batch and reuse the trays. I had 3 mini trays (thanks to my grandmother who lent me 2 of hers) – but it still required quite a bit of time to get them all through the oven! But it was so worth it for the cuteness factor! 

Mini cupcakes aren’t just for kids – they’re perfect for a birthday at any age! 

Birthday Girl with Mini Cupcakes!

Happy Birthday Katie! And Happy Eating to all! 

Caroline