chocolate blah.

THE ADVENTURE
Dark Chocolate Peppermint cupcakes, I think with Christmas being around the corner these are the perfect seasonal treat!

THE PROBLEM
I HATE chocolate :(  well, hate is a strong word, but if I had my pick every cupcake I made would be vanilla or something along those lines.  And yes, I do ultimately pick the cupcake flavors I make right now but since I'm not the one who ends up eating all of them I have to please a variety of people with a variety of taste buds.  The same goes for nuts, I personally think they are gross in any type of dessert, but my mom says if I want to open a cupcake shop and please a wide range of customers I must give in and use nuts on some.  The nut battle I am still fighting!

HOW IT WENT
When I want to make cupcakes I'll do some research when it comes to the recipe.  I like when they have a lot of positive reviews because if its worked out for someone else then it should more than likely work for me.  It's also helpful when reviewers post tips on making the cupcakes even better.  For this cupcake I used this recipe for the cake part and this recipe for the frosting.

The dark chocolate batter ended up looking for like chocolate soup.. very very thin.  The recipe said it would be though, but still a little odd looking.  I poured the batter into the muffin cups and got a little batter happy because when I went to check on them in the oven 5 or 6 of them were spilling over and two had dripped all the way to the bottom of the oven, eek!  It started to burn so I had to scrape the stuff off real fast and put out a couple sparks??  Luckily the firefighters were not needed!  There was plenty of batter left over so I put in a second batch and tried to salvage the overspilling cupcakes.

I made a total of 18, but one was a runt, so I took him out of the picture

The frosting went smoothly.  A little bit of peppermint extract goes a long way and comes out of the bottle very fast!  Thank goodness I watched some you tube video that recommended measuring your liquid ingredients over a different bowl in case you over pour.

A tip I saw: put your piping bag in a glass when you're filling it, keeps mess to a minimum

Frosting the cupcakes, I'm a pro!

Finished product, with sugar peppermint sprinkles!

nom nom nom

AFTER THOUGHTS

All in all I was pleased.  I think they turned out pretty.  Not sure this is going to be my go to chocolate cupcake recipe though.  My mom, our pest control guy, and Clay have eaten one so far and said they're yummy and even if you aren't a huge peppermint fan it's subtle enough to where you would enjoy it as well.

So who wants to invest in my shop?!?