The kid’s and I have been chatting Valentine’s Day desserts this week. They have off of school on the 14th so I said we could make something special.
We made a test batch of these Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Pink Buttercream and Arrow decorations. They are adorbs! The icing was done with a butter knife by Shae so it isn’t fancy but it’s handmade.
Here is the recipe for cupcakes & icing.
Double Chocolate Cupcakes
- 2 ounces bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate
- 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
Preheat your oven to 350° and prep a 12 muffin cups with liners.
Gather all of your ingredients, measured and ready to use. If you don’t have buttermilk now if the time to make some. In a measuring cup add 2 tsp of lemon juice or white vinegar and fill to the 1/2 cup line with milk. Let this sit for 5 minutes till thick and curdled.
In a microwave proof bowl melt the butter and chocolate in 30 second increments till smooth and shiny. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt till thoroughly combined. Set aside.
In the bowl of your mixer with the whisk attachment combine sugars, eggs and vanilla till silky smooth. Slowly add in the butter/chocolate mixture till combined.
Add the remaining ingredients, flour mixture & buttermilk half at a time and mix just till combined. Doing the final mixing by hand ensures you won’t over mix the batter. You’ll have a very thick batter, one that resembles brownie mix more than cake batter.
Evenly scoop into muffin cups and bake for 17-19 minutes. A toothpick should come out with specks of crumbs.
Remove from oven, set aside to cool for 5 minutes then transfer cupcakes to cooling rack.
Let come to room temperature before icing.
Simple Buttercream Icing (easily doubles or triples)
- 2 sticks softened NOT MELTED butter
- 4-5 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- pinch of salt
- 2-3 drops pink food coloring
- 1-2 tbls heavy cream
Mix all of your ingredients except for heavy cream with a paddle attachment on your mixer until you achieve smooth consistency. Slowly add cream 1 tbls at a time for a soft frosting. Your icing should not be stiff but not runny. If you add too much cream add in more sugar a couple tablespoons at a time.
Ice you cupcakes with a piping bag and tip or keep it rustic and family style with just a warm butter knife.
Decorate as you wish and share with your loved ones.
Come join me and my co-hosts, Sarah of Play to Learn with Sarah, Paula at Frosted Fingers and Sara at Sensibly Sara, each week linking up a post, new or old, that feature the theme Kids in the Kitchen. It doesn’t matter what you are doing as long as you are doing it together, enjoying it and learning something along the way.
- preparing healthy snacks
- having a tea party
- counting skills with m&ms
- pouring from measuring cups
- discovering a local restaurant that your kids love
- creating new family friendly recipes
You’ll find so many more ideas on the #KidsintheKitchen Pinterest Board.
Sabreena and I thought we had it under control and put 4 circles of batter in at once to speed up the process. We had 2 casualties that time. One cookie that didn’t take on a very good shaped and one that never made it off the baking sheet.
Was it fun? YES. Will I ever attempt it again? Probably Not. Best part though is they tasted really good.
With $50 in hand, a list of ingredients a 1/2 page long and 4-5 recipe ideas in my head I went to the store to load up on Chex cereal varieties and all kinds of “toppings”. Then once dinner was done and cleaned up Shae and I made dessert, Candy Bar Chex Mix. Making any kind of Chex Mix usually requires very little to no cooking. For some mix-ups you’ll want some kind of liquid to coat the cereal and ingredients. For this particular recipe a caramel was made. Since making caramel can get really hot I did that part on my on.
Enjoy slightly warm and messy or package up into treat bags to pop into the kids lunch bag or to give to the kids.
Ingredients
As I got all the ingredients into the mixer she washed her hands and then pulled herself up to the table.
I would make these again. They were easy and they tasted good. I don’t like peanut butter cookies but I ate 2 of these. Next time I’m going to add raisins or chocolate chips and a couple squirts of honey to enhance the sweetness from the brown sugar. These additions will keep it gluten free too!
