Beatty’s Chocolate Cupcakes Two Ways

September’s Barefoot Bloggers brought us two cake recipes and I for one found that I needed to spread the recipes out a little further than two weeks apart.  But after not loving the Birthday Sheet Cake, I was really looking forward to the Beatty’s Chocolate Cake choice after hearing so many great things about this recipe over the past couple of years.

My only stipulation about this recipe was that I wanted to make cupcakes for my coworkers since the cupcakes we recently purchased for a birthday celebration from a local mobile cupcake bakery were bordering on horrific.  Who knew a $2 cupcake could be so bad??  I promised them cupcakes that would blow their minds and would be worth way more than the $2 pieces of crap we recently experienced.

And holy moly…the cupcakes did not disappoint!  The depth of chocolate flavor was perfect and they were almost too moist to eat without a fork, even after being stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days which traditionally dries cupcakes out.  As you can see from the photos, I made two versions: chocolate peanut butter cup (frosting recipe here) and Oreo cream (cream frosting recipe from Annie’s Eats here).  My personal preference was of course for the chocolate peanut butter cup version but I honestly was so happy with the Oreo cream version as well…and my coworkers were so blown away with the cake that the frosting variations were just a bonus.  The recipe is similar to the Hershey’s recipe and I think if I were to need a chocolate recipe for cupcakes again, I would use the Hershey’s recipe only because this recipe yielded cupcake almost too moist to eat with your hands.

Thanks to Mary of Passionate Perseverance for choosing this recipe!!!

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Beatty’s Chocolate Cupcakes

source: adapted from Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa at Home, page 165-166

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cups good cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two 12 cup muffin tins with paper liners.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
3. Pour the batter into prepared muffin tins and bake for 18 – 20 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 20 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.
4. Frost with your desired frosting recipe.

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