Our new kittens got names today, which I saw as a good excuse to bake. I wanted something chocolatey and strawberry-y, and Google led me to this beautiful blog: Krissy’s Creations, and this lovely recipe. I made half of the cupcake recipe (I made mine a little smaller, so I got 18 cupcakes) and 1/3 of the buttercream recipe, and it was still oh-so-much buttercream for a Finnish palate. As you can see from the photo, I can’t pipe buttercream onto a cupcake worth s&!t, so please take a look at Krissy’s gorgeous creations to see how cute these could be!

 

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup sugar

¾ cup + 2 tbls all-purpose flour

6 tbls cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used rapeseed oil)

1 ts vanilla extract

1/2 cup boiling water

 

Strawberry Buttercream

180 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 ts salt

1/4 ts vanilla extract

2 tbls mashed strawberries

 

Preheat oven to 175 C.  Line cupcake pans with 18 baking liners.

 

Sift together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

 

Whisk together egg, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Gradually add the dry ingredients until fully incorporated. Add the boiling water and mix until the batter is smooth. Divide the batter between the prepared cupcake liners.

 

Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake has just a few crumbs clinging to it). Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

 

To make buttercream: Cream the butter with an electronic mixer until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and salt and mix until fully incorporated. Mix in the vanilla and strawberry puree and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.

 

Place the buttercream in a large piping bag fitted with a closed-star tip and pipe buttercream onto cupcakes (and please do a better job than I did ).