Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

What does a cupcake say to you? To me, it says I'm all yours in my sweet and delectable goodness. Unlike any other dessert, which can be shared, a cupcake is unique in that it offers an individual sized treat meant for you and only you. I like that.


A cupcake also says perfection. Perfection in baking and also in frosting. The cake has to be moist and the frosting, a perfect peak of goodness. This thought made me quite nervous as I embarked on my first ever attempt at making cupcakes. I have long been a cupcake fan but I wasn't brave enough to take it on. That changed this weekend. One of our friends was hosting a baby shower and I offered (a little hesitantly) to bring the cupcakes. I needed a tried and tested recipe for a chocolate cupcake and I knew exactly where I could find this. One of my favorite blogs, Canelle et Vanille offered a chocolate cupcake recipe which looked absolutely spectacular (all of her picutres look spectacular btw). It was a recipe originally from the Magnolia bakery in New York and after seeing Aran's pictures, I knew I had found what I was looking for.


The baking of the cupcakes went quite well, it was the frosting which had me in a bind. I had no experience with frosting before, so my first attempts at piping these onto the cupcakes weren't exactly pretty. I abandoned the piping and just slathered them on instead. And then for an extra cute as a button touch, I adorned them with a sugar candy. I was delighted with the results even though mine didn't look as pretty. 


Chocolate cupcakes (Original recipe from Magnolia Bakery can be found here.)


2 cups All-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (I used dark brown instead since I only had that)
4 large eggs at room temperature
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Line 2 12-cup muffin pans with cupcake papers and set aside. ( I had only one pan so I baked these in two batches, reusing after cooling the first batch for 20 mins).
- Melt the chocolate. I melted mine in the microwave and let it cool for around 10 minutes.
- In a small bowl, sift the flour and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add the molten chocolate, mixing well until incorporated.
- Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are well incorporated, but do not overbeat.
- Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth.
- Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake about 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the cupcake center comes out clean.
- Cool the cupcakes in the tins for about 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.
- Pipe or spread the icing on top of the cupcakes.


Vanilla Buttercream frosting (Recipe from Magnolia bakery can be found here, I halved it)


1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3-4 cups of confectioners sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


- Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of the sugar, milk and vanilla.
- On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.
- Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of spreadable consistency.
- I added a few drops of blue color to the icing.


Makes 24 cupcakes.

Vanilla Chocolate Swirl cake

As you may know by now I quite like desserts. And cakes definitely feature quite high on my desserts list. I am not sure if its the actual end product or the baking process (which envelopes your house in this warm sugary aroma) which I like more. I find there is something infinitely therapeutic about mixing together a cake batter. The company of sugar, butter and vanilla essence can make anyone happy, don't you think? Add chocolate to the mix and you have quite a party.

So baking this vanilla chocolate swirl cake made me quite happy on a recent day off. I had been drooling over several swirl cake recipes from a few of my favorite blogs and had them bookmarked as must tries. I finally decided to try this one especially because it had room for addition of nuts. The original recipe called for pistachios and pistachio paste. I didn't have any of the paste so I skipped that and I used chopped hazelnuts instead of the pistachios. The hazelnuts substitution was well thought out in an attempt to recreate the gooey chocolatey heaven presented by a Ferrero-Rocher. And it didn't disappoint!

I am sending this as an entry to the Cakes and Cookies event hosted at this beautiful Indian food blog, Spices Etc.

Recipe from 101cookbooks and edited:

(I skipped the ganache from the original recipe but I am sure it will be lovely on this cake)

270 g (2 C) flour

2 tsp baking powder (1 envelope)

1 tsp baking soda

150 g (2/3 C) butter, at room temperature

300 g (1 1/4 C) white sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 C (3 x 125 ml) plain yogurt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

60 g (1/3 C) chocolate chips

60 g (1/3 C) shelled hazelnuts chopped

- Preheat your oven to 180C (360F). Grease a 25cm (10-inch) cake pan, preferably non-stick.

- Prepare the chocolate batter. In a food processor, mix together half of the sugar and half of the butter and beat until fluffy. Add in two of the eggs, one at a time mixing between each. Add in half of the yogurts and all the vanilla extract, mix again.

- In a medium bowl, combine half of the flour with half of the baking powder, half of the baking soda and all the cocoa powder.

- Add the flour mixture into the food processor and mix again until just combined. Add half the chocolate chips and mix well.

- Pour the batter into the cake pan, and reserve in the refrigerator.

- Rinse the bowl of the food processor and prepare the vanilla batter by mixing together the rest of the sugar and butter. Add in the last two eggs, one at a time mixing in between. Add the rest of the yogurt and mix again.

- In a medium bowl, combine remainder of the flour with the remainder of the baking powder and the baking soda. Add this to the sugar mixture and mix until just combined.

- Take the cake pan out of the fridge and sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips and the chopped hazelnuts on top of the chocolate batter.

- Gently pour the vanilla batter on top and smooth out the surface with a spatula.

- Put into the over to bake for about an hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest for five minutes on the counter in pan. Then turn it out onto a rack to cool completely.