Double Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes

(This recipe was adapted from a recipe I found in Big Sky Cooking by Meridith Brokaw)

Somedays you just need a double chocolate cupcake to make it all better.

This week I’m taking something yummy to a couple of new mama’s.  I felt led to make chocolate cupcakes.  Baby crying?  Lock yourself in the bathroom with a cupcake.  Baby napping?  Relax with a cupcake.  Able to get out of your jammies and robe before 2 p.m.?  Reward yourself with a cupcake.  Took a shower?  That deserves two cupcakes.

Here’s what you need:

2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
pinch of kosher salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pkg. dark chocolate chips

Frosting:

6 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 Tbs. vanilla
2 Tbs. brewed coffee
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup heavy cream

For the batter:

Preheat oven to 350.  In medium bowl combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.  In a large bowl using a mixer, cream the butter, sugar, eggs until light and fluffy.  Add the buttermilk and vanilla and beat on low.  Gradually add the flour mixture until well combined.  Add dark chocolate chips and fold in w/ a spoon.

Spoon batter into muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting:

Melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate in a double boiler.  Add vanilla and coffee.  Stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and set aside.  In a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, bring sugar and cream to a boil.  Reduce heat and stir until sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Add chocolate mixture and stir until combined.  Cover and refrigerate until cool.

If using regular muffin tin, butter and flour the tin or use liners.  I used a popover pan so that I could have a nice big cupcake.

Chicago Metallic Non Stick 6-Cup Popover Pan

A Popover pan is a wonderfully deep muffin tin used to make…Popovers.  If you’ve never had a popover then I’m sorry.  I’m not exactly sure how to describe a Popover.  It’s not a muffin and it’s not a biscuit and it’s not a pastry.  It’s more than just bread served with tea.  It’s light and buttery and hallow in the inside and melts in your mouth.  If you’ve been wondering what that empty void in your life is…it is because you have never had a popover with strawberry butter.  Someday I’ll make you one and you will understand what has been missing.  The void will be filled.  You will be ready to meet your maker.

Anyhoo,  I wanted my cupcake to look special so I decided to line the Popover pan with parchment paper so it would look like one of those fancy muffins you get at fancy bakeries.  Lining a tin with parchment paper isn’t the easiest.  It doesn’t want to stay  in place so I had to get creative.

Measuring cups, salt and pepper shakers and a vitamin bottle did the trick.

Spooning the batter into the cups got a little messy.  Nothing too bad that my sous chef couldn’t clean up.  Oh wait, I don’t have a sous chef.

Double chocolate buttermilk cupcakes…it’ll cure what ails ya.