11/100: Chocolate on chocolate cupcakes

This Wednesday I had the joy of baking with my bestie Laura. She's the birthday baker for her lab and a labmate's birthday was coming up, so she decided to make chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. I was recruited to help with the baking process (also I got the added bonus of spending time with her!), and I happily said yes. I felt a little conflicted about adding this to my baking goals, but I think it still counts. 1) I definitely learned new baking secrets, 2) I contributed to the baking and decision making, 3) I spent time baking. Plus, I also think an added bonus of this baking goal is the ability to bring and develop friendships. If I can only bake alone or for my own things, that feels a little exclusive. So, in all, I feel good about adding this to my bake count, and I look forward to supporting other friends in their bakes while having my new year's resolution simultaneously supported!

We chose chocolate cupcakes from Fiona's blog Just So Tasty. Vy had baked these cupcakes before, so they had already passed the "baked and edible" test. My first thought when reading the recipe was: "there's a lot of ingredients!" So far, I've found that a lot of my best baked goods have been incredibly simple, which has made me almost wary of having too many ingredients. However, because this recipe was vetted by Vy we plowed ahead. First, we made the cupcakes!

Ingredient shot!

The sour cream and corn starch were a weird touch. However, the absence of butter and presence of oil was a trend I recognized: the chocolate crinkle cookies used vegetable oil instead of butter as well. I wonder why vegetable oil is often used to compliment chocolate. A quick google search says that perhaps using oil allows for a cake-y, fluffier texture, so I will cross reference this logic the next time I make a cake. The baking directions also requested that we warm the eggs to room temperature. Curious at this logic, Laura and I googled it and found the answer: apparently adding cold eggs to certain mixtures can cause curdling. Just as adding too-hot browned butter can cook eggs, perhaps adding too-cold eggs can curdle to oil? That's my best guess at what the warm eggs are protecting us from in this recipe, but in any case I was happy to oblige. Wait and warm we did, before adding together all of the ingredients. Much like muffins, this is another two bowl wonder. Mix the wet ingredients together, mix the dry ingredients separately, slowly add the dry ingredients in and voila! You have cupcake batter. And delicious cupcake batter in the case of this recipe!

Doling out the cupcake batter

We waited for the allotted time and caught up with Vy. Additionally, I had just gotten my wisdom teeth out on Monday (I'm no longer wise!) and Vy and Laura introduced me to my ultimate life saver: instant mashed potatoes. Let me tell you- I have been incredibly paranoid about not making a full recovery from my wisdom tooth extraction. Perhaps because the procedure was so quick and painless (I was in and out of the dental chair in 35 minutes! even my roommate picking me up wasn't ready!) I was thinking perhaps the recovery could be the real challenge. I therefore took all precautions and refused to eat solid food for three days. In fact, I was planning to break my fast with these chocolate cupcakes! However, after two straights days of only pudding, soup, and yogurt, my salty tooth was hurting BADLY. Enter: instant mashed potatoes. They are tasty, impossible to differentiate from real mashed potatoes, and even better: salty. I was a happy woman!

I even took a picture of this wonder! Thank you Vy and Laura!

Next up, we made the frosting. I enjoyed this process because I sifted powdered sugar for the first time. Turns out there's a bit of a technique to it and you have to push the powdered sugar through the sifter with the back of a spoon. Thanks for the tip Vy!

Frosting ingredients!

Go Vy go!

I'd say the most fun (and funny!) part was definitely icing the cupcakes. Turns out Laura has some strong opinions about piping. She prefers smooth piping rather than ridged. I definitely agree with her, but I think ridged may have an advantage when it's chocolate frosting... you be the judge ;)

Laura, my super happy froster and baking buddy <3

Frosting with all my might!

All done!

How did the cupcakes turn out? Well, even with my tepid chewing and wisdom tooth nervousness, they were good enough to make me forget my worries. I had that last naked cupcake in the back, and the cupcake was tasty, but a little salty, which makes me think that they were probably perfect when paired with the frosting. Often I find cupcakes too sweet (I told you that salty tooth reigns supreme), so I only eat the cake and skip the frosting, but I think these cupcakes hit a balance! I was unable to taste the combination because I wanted to save all of the good ones for Laura's lab. Her labmates loved the cupcakes, so I think it's safe to say the cupcakes struck the balance beautifully.

My favorite part of this bake was baking with Laura and learning all of her baking customs. For example: she doesn't like to mix the dry ingredients separately. We did a separate bowl for this recipe to incorporate the chocolate powder properly (and possibly because of my influence ;P). Up next: baking with my childhood friend Lauren. We made nectarine blackberry cobbler and it's my favorite thing I've baked yet!