Continuing with my Greek-inspired theme this week, I had to give these a try since they feature Greek yogurt. You should know I consider myself baking impaired. Although I make entrees and sides with few failures, baking gives me mixed results, so I rarely bake. That’s something I really want to improve on, so I cleared a day and took my time making some chocolate cupcakes for the first time ever. Boy, was it worth it!
This is a great recipe for when you’re looking for something a little more exciting than your standard chocolate cupcake recipe. Moist, rich, and topped with the most addicting chocolate buttercream ever (trust me; you won’t be able to stop “taste testing”).
The Ingredients
The list of ingredients intimidated me a little because it’s so long. It really surprised me that I had almost all of them on hand. I had to buy eggs, Greek yogurt, and half-and-half. Not bad for a recipe that has 16 ingredients.
Oh, and I used coffee instead of boiling water in the cupcakes since it sounded like the tastier option. How could the combo of chocolate and coffee ever be bad?
The Process
These aren’t quick, but I enjoyed the process since I rarely bake. Here is how the times broke down:
- Chocolate Cupcakes
- Prep: 22 Minutes
- Baking: 28 minutes
- Fudge Frosting
- Prep: 13 minutes (made while cupcakes were baking)
- Application: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, not including cooling
Making everything wasn’t difficult, but I did get a little mixed up at times. I like to have the ingredients listed in the order needed, but the instructions and the list differ in that regard. It was a matter of hunting through the list for the ingredient(s) I needed for some steps so I could find the quantity needed.
The Cupcakes
The recipe makes enough batter for 14 chocolate cupcakes. As a result, I had a little leftover even after filling all 12 in the muffin pan almost all the way full. I’m fine with that since I would rather have a little extra than not enough.
I did the toothpick test after 18 minutes of baking on the middle rack, and it was covered in batter. Way underdone. Adding another 10 minutes solved the problem, and they turned out to be very moist.
The cupcakes had very round domes when I first took them out of the oven. As you can see from the picture below, they deflated as they cooled. The flatter tops made frosting them easy.
The Frosting
The fudge frosting was easy to make, but things did get a little dusty. My hand mixer really kicked up the cocoa powder and powdered sugar as I was mixing them with the butter, yogurt, and half and half. Luckily I used a very large mixing bowl, or things could have gotten really messy!
Applying the frosting using a pastry bag for the first time was a good learning experience. I found a great tutorial on YouTube that showed me how to assemble, fill, and use the bag (see below). It’s not as difficult as I imagined, and practicing on a cutting board first helped.
Unfortunately, I was a little too generous with the first 6 cupcakes. The next two got a minimal swirl of frosting, and the last two got what was left in the pastry bag. Not so pretty but still tasty!
The Equipment
There’s a lot involved in this recipe, so I thought it would be helpful to list all the kitchen equipment needed.
- Measuring Spoons
- Measuring Cups (dry)
- Measuring Cup (liquid)
- Muffin Tin
- Cupcake Liners
- Mixing Bowls (1) medium & (1) large (You will need to wash them after making the cake batter so you can reuse them to make the frosting.)
- Balloon Whisk
- Mixing Spoon
- Spatula (optional but helpful when making frosting)
- Toothpicks
- Nonstick Spray (optional but helpful)
- Sifter
- Hand Mixer (what I used) or Stand Mixer
- Pastry Tips & Piping Bags (optional but helpful)
- Airtight Storage Container
