Chocolate Cupcake

Posted by spots (Singapore, Singapore) on 12 July 2005 in Food & Cuisine and Portfolio.

This recipe is adapted from Carol G Durst's "I Knew You Were Coming So I Baked A Cake". It was a gift from eons ago, and I enjoy her conversational style of writing, dropping comments here and there about her children and her life. I say the recipe was "adapted" because Durst's recipe called for baking soda and baking powder, but I only had baking soda (also known as bicarbonate soda/sodium bicarbonate) on hand. So, had to do a bit of re-adjustment to the rest of the ingredients, to ensure that the batter "rose" to the occasion, but not too high. ^__^ Also, I must add that at first, I was a bit skeptical because Durst did not put any butter into the recipe - a cake with no butter? GASP. You might also be taken aback that Durst calls for 1 cup of boiling water to be added to the batter. Hoowart. But, surprisingly, the the result was a lovely moist, chocolatey, yet not too dense cupcake, quite reminiscent of the self-saucing chocolate pudding recipe I posted a while ago. Here's the no-fuss recipe for you to try:

Chocolate cupcakes adapted from Carol G Durst
(Durst calls them the "don't do it" chocolate cupcakes, because there are a lot of things you don't need to do!)

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cup self-raising flour

1 ts salt

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 ts vanilla essence/extract

1 ts baking soda

1 ts lemon juice

1 cup boiling water

1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees celsius. Prepare your muffin tins * by lining with paper cups.

2. Combine the cocoa powder, sugar, flour and salt. Use a wooden spoon to mix these dry ingredients thoroughly.

3. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, oil, eggs and vanilla essence/extract thoroughly. Add this to the mixed dry ingredients and then, add the baking soda and lemon juice.** Use an electric mixer to beat the entire mixture on medium speed for just 2 minutes ***.

4. Add 1 cup of boiling water to the mixture and stir thoroughly with wooden spoon. Now you batter is ready to be baked!

5. Pour the batter into the muffin tins and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean and the muffin top springs back when you touch it. Remove and let it cool completely before stealing on to try for yourself!

* There are different sizes of muffin tins & paper cups. For this recipe, I would suggest you do not use the huge muffin cups/tins, i.e., those served at Coffee Bean or Starbucks. This is because the moist chocolately taste is best savoured in smaller portions.

** Why add the baking soda and lemon juice at such a later stage? Well, as a rising agent, baking soda tends to take effect rather quickly, so it's best to add it in towards the end.

*** Why did Durst say to beat just for 2 minutes? I'm not sure but I suspect it's because either she doesn't want the batter to be too stiff or she doesn't want to incorporate too much air into the batter. Jus a guess.