Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Ghirardelli Chocolate Butterm Frosting

When I was a little girl, I used to pronounce 'chocolate' as 'osh-quit'. I knew I loved it even before I knew how to say it!  I was wandering about Trader Joe's one day and came across Trader Joe's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder so I decided to give it a whirl.  THEN I look on the back and see a recipe titled, "The Greatest & Easiest Chocolate Cake" and I couldn't resist.  This recipe uses a great deal of buttermilk, more than I have ever used in a cupcake recipe, so I new this would turn out with a great texture.  I disregarded the directions and followed my own preferred steps and just used the ingredient list.  I topped these little cakes off Chocolate Buttercream made with Ghirardelli's 60% cacoa baking chips.  So delightful! You MUST try!

Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes
(Makes 48 cupcakes, or 24 cupcakes and one 9 inch round cake)

3 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 1/3 cup Trader Joe's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
3 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
12 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
3 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla (as always, I only use Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla from Nielsen-Massey)
5 eggs, room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin(s) with cupcake liners and grease 9 inch round cake pan (s).
2. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add in vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
5. Alternating between the dry flour mixture and buttermilk, pour in each in thirds and wait until well blended before each addition. Be sure to start and end with adding the dry flour mixture.
6. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 18-20 minutes for cupcakes, or 50-55 minutes in cake pans.
7. Frost and DEVOUR!

Ghirardelli Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Find the recipe in a previous post HERE :)

All set with equipment and ingredients!

Have a wonderful week!



A Baby Shower's Dr. Suess Themed Cupcakes- Red Velvet and Blue Velvet with Vanilla Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting

 
I was sooo excited to do cupcakes for a friend of mine who was hosting a baby shower. The theme? Dr. Suess!! I made 2 dozen cupcakes: Red and Blue Velvet. The moist Red Velvet Cupcakes were adapted from blogger, Carrot Top Mom. I didn't want to just replicate the same recipe and just add blue food coloring, so I hunted and pecked for the best Blue Velvet recipe. My goal was to find a recipe that had a true 'blue velvet' hue as apposed to just an ultra bright blue cake. It paid off with the fantastic recipe I found from Sprinkle Bakes who also was in search of the same thing and succeeded!

Vanilla Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting

For recipe and directions, jump to my previous post here!



Red Velvet Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder  [I like Trader Joe's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder...until I can get my hands on some Valhrona!]
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temerature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon red food coloring
2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract  [Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla of course! The only kind I use I found at Williams Sonoma]


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cupcake pan with liners.
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.
3. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. 4. Beat in eggs, one at a time. In a separate bowl, mix in sour cream, milk, food color and vanilla.
5. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Do not overbeat.
6. Using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop, scoop into cupcake liners.
7. Bake 18 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Gently remove from oven (these are super-moist, and will collapse if you aren’t careful). Cool in pans on wire rack at least 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely. Frost and devour!

I looooove the texture of Red Velvet batter!

Blue Velvet Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 eggs

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon Pure Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract

1 tablespoon Wilton royal blue gel food coloring gel

1 small dab of Wilton violet gel food coloring gel

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

4 teasepoons of fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cupcake pan with liners.

2. In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter, mix until light and fluffy.

3. Add the eggs 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition.

4. In a small bowl mix cocoa, vanilla and food colorings together to form a paste. Add paste to butter/sugar mixture and mix well.

5. Sift together flour and salt. Add flour mixture to the sugar mixture in two batches alternating with buttermilk.

6. In a small bowl, combine baking soda and vinegar and add to batter and mix until well blended. Batter will be thicker than a mix cake, and slightly doughy.

7. Using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop, scoop batter into cupcake liners.

8. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

Get the perfect color combination with the gel colors from Wilton:

Step #4: Mixing cocoa, gel colors and vanila to form a colored paste.

Step #4 continued: Adding paste into sugar/butter mixture.

Step #7: Loading cupcake liners with the Blue Velvet batter!

Cat in the Hat & Green Eggs and Ham!!!

One Fish, Two Fish.......

Red Fish, Blue Fish!

The Assortment:

Dr. Suess Themed Baby Shower Cupcakes

The Cupcakes in Action :)

Here is the Mommy To Be!