Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

It's my man's birthday today, and despite his protests to NOT make him a dessert, I know he secretly wanted something. Like a good lil' fiance' I put on my apron, and set myself up to make some of his favorite cupcakes ever.

 Cupcakes are such a classic dessert, and they're seen quite the revival in the bakery scene over the last five years or so. Shops that sell  crazy concoctions of whatever  flavors you can dream up, like bloody Mary and Beef Stew cupcakes, (Ok, so I've never seen those particulars, but I would be up for the challenge if someone asked me to make those flavors...) are a-plenty. I've always been a fan because of the cute factor, and the special feeling you get from having a cupcake all your own, not a cast-away piece of cake after everyone else has seized the ones with the most frosting and sans leftover Birthday candle wax leavings.

I remember one of my first cupcakes at Daycare when I was a wee lass. One of my contemporaries told me you were to eat the wrapper as well, and he proceeded to do so with gusto. After one taste of the wrapper in contrast with the cake-y magic of the cupcake, I quickly realized he was full of hot air. This same boy would go on to argue with me that if you crushed the chips in a bag, it tripled the amount of chips, and later licked a frog on a dare, and he ceased to be credible in my 9 year old mind.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

Cake:

-3 cups flour

-2 cups filtered water

-1 cup canola oil

-2/3 cup cocoa powder

-2 t. baking soda

-1 t. salt

-1 t. vanilla

-4 t. apple cider vinegar

Buttercream:

-3 large egg-whites

-3/4 cup sugar

-2 sticks butter

-1 t. vanilla

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in one bowl, and water, canola oil, vanilla, sugar and cocoa in another, and whisk until combined. Combine wet and dry ingredients and whisk until combined, then stir in apple cider vinegar until combined. Place in lined cupcake tins and bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in comes out clean. Cool on cooling wrack. For buttercream, In a medium sauce-pan, combine egg whites and sugar and cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly until sugar is dissolved, (about 160 degrees on instant read thermometer) Transfer immediately to a mixing bowl and beat on high until doubled in volume, keep whisking until cool. Turn mixer speed to medium and slowly add butter 1/2 T. at a time to combine. May look curdled, but keep whisking, it will smooth out after several minutes. Once frosting is glossy looking, add vanilla and salt then turn mixer to high speed for 1-minute before stopping. Frost cooled cupcakes.

This is such a classic delicious cupcake. The silky frosting is pure and buttery, and the chocolate cake is to-die-for. There's a reason the boy likes it so much. Enjoy!