Cupcakes and Chocolate....

So, I haven't told ya'll that I'm making the cupcake/cake tower for my son's wedding....I'm so excited! I am having the time of my life creating cupcakes for taste testing. The first cupcakes I made were Sparkling Cider (a hit) with Sparkling Cider Frosting (not a hit, too runny)....Oh, did I tell you, I have never really frosted cupcakes before other than the standard spread the prepared frosting on cupcakes and pour sprinkles on them....you will watch me grow with my frosting techniques. Anyhow, going back to the chocolate (I did try to entice you to read through the title)! Okay....so first I will post the recipe (it's VERY chocolate) that I used and make notes of how I tweaked it and then I will show pics (stop drooling)!

Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients: 
1-1/2 cups cocoa powder
3 cups all purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
1 tbsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 eggs (bring to room temperature)
1-1/2 cups buttermilk (***)
1-1/2 cups water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup Hershey's Special Dark syrup
2 tsp really good vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with cooking spray (I prefer the liners). Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda and baking powder (I sift all dry ingredients so there won't be any lumps). Mix in the sugar and salt. Slowly add the eggs (one at a time), the vanilla, water, oil and buttermilk. Mix until combined (scraping the sides and bottom to reach all the dry ingredients). Fill liners to about 2/3rds full, using a 1/3 cup measuring cup works well and keeps the mess down. Bake for 20 minutes, remove from pans to cool on wire racks. This recipe made 36 fluffy, very chocolatey cupcakes.

(***) - If you don't have buttermilk, you can make it by pouring 2 tbsp lemon juice into a 1-1/2 cup measuring cup and filling it the rest of the way with milk. Let sit for 15 minutes, it will get curdled and look yucky but works so well! I always make it this way....I actually like the texture of the recipe better.

This is what was left after 24 cupcakes....Yum! I could have just taken a spoon to it but I knew I needed to make that other dozen! 

I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup to fill the cupcake liners...

This is what they look like....YUMMY! Can you imagine just biting into one? I usually fill the liners with a little less batter but I wanted them to over hang a bit! I am compromising by  not having  "too much frosting"   as we don't want them overly sweet, but yet have enough to make them pretty. The bride doesn't care for frosting so much and the groom (my son), well like me, he loves frosting! It's  Monday, I will be frosting on Thursday so you will just have to wait for those pictures....We'll see how these go over. Wanna try one?