Chocolate Cupcakes on a lazy Sunday evening!

A few weeks back, on a rare occasion, all of the grown children of my household were home (barring 1 girlfriend - T-bear, you were missed terribly!!). This sort of thing never happens as we're all in our 20s and usually all over the place. My brother is typically at school somewhere in the US, my step-sister in past years has been at school in Kingston, and I'm just all over the place. Needless to say this was a big deal!

While we were prepping dinner and catching up on what was going on with everyone, my step-sister mentioned that she had a craving for a simple chocolate cake with plain chocolate frosting. Apparently this is hard to come by which I find to be insanity! How can no one make just simple chocolate cake with chocolate frosting any more? Have we really become so entertained by all of the crazy cake flavours out there that we've forgotten that sometimes the simplest things are the best? Before I go off on a huge tangent about simplicity in the kitchen, I digress!

So to help the poor girl out in her quest for chocolate cake, I decided to whip up a batch of Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes. I was fascinated by the claim of these actually only using one bowl and truth be told, it worked... Well... one bowl and one sifter but still! This batter takes all of 5 minutes to mix and produces results comparable to cake mix without all the added grossness that goes into mixes. The ingredients were all found in my kitchen and I think it's safe to say that they would be found in most other kitchens too. I cannot stress this enough... GO MAKE THESE CUPCAKES! You will not regret it one single bit! 

These little beauties have the most gorgeous shiny tops ever. They are good enough to eat sans frosting even!

The cupcake liners don't hurt either! You can never go wrong with polka dots!

Once we had the cupcakes made, it was time to frost these babies up with a simple chocolate frosting. My frosting was made with butter, icing sugar, a few tablespoons of cocoa powder, some vanilla bean paste (or you could use vanilla extract) and a touch of milk. I know that usually I am religious at piping my frosting but sometimes you have to live a little and just do what feels right. These were not cupcakes for an order, they were cupcakes for a family dinner in the backyard while playing (slightly intoxicated) ring toss on a 6 foot tall Eiffel tower.

All I can say is YUMMMMMM! Now, I think the best part about these is that they were enjoyed by all. Exhibit 1 is a montage of my brother, Brandon, devouring his cupcake!!! I can't help but laughing at his facial expressions! 

We had some strawberry buttercream frosting left from this post and we managed to make little cupcake sandwiches that were devoured as well! Even our cat, Mo, had some!

So next time your family is over and someone is craving some simple chocolatey deliciousness, promise, promise, promise me that you will give these a try! Pinky promise!!!! 

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful weekend now that the rain has finally stopped! 

Happy weekend-ing and happy baking! 

t
xoxo