Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Frosting

Baking shmaking!! I can put together a basic cake and a few squares, but delicate pastries and other French concoctions take patience, practice and timing. Meh. The cupcake, however, can be pulled off by a more careless and aloof baker. If the cake winds up tasting like sandbox, you can always load on a lethal amount of icing as a cover up.

My stand mixer gathered dust for about 10 months this year. A few weeks ago, I finally pulled it out to try my hand at some Christmas baking and have had some good results so far. This recipe is one of those results and I encourage you to try it out. If peppermint isn't your thing, I made a similar batch of cupcakes with two teaspoons of Bailey's Irish Cream creamer and a teaspoon of espresso (prepared with water, that is) and some instant espresso grounds sprinkled on top.  I found the icing a little wet, which didn't give me the decorative look I was hoping for. If you want a better looking topping for your cupcakes, you'll need to add more icing sugar to get that result.

From: http://www.myrecipes.com/

Makes 12 cupcakes

Cupcakes

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 6 T unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 t vanilla extract

Peppermint Icing

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup light tub-style cream cheese
• 1/8 t peppermint extract
• 12 hard peppermint candies, crushed

*I had to double the icing recipe to get enough icing to pipe on to the cupcakes. If you opt to spread the icing on with a knife, you won't need to double your quantities.

Method

Preheat oven to 350F. Place brown sugar and butter in a stand mixer and mix until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time until combined. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the dry ingredients in stages to the mixer, alternating with the buttermilk. Once all combined, pour the batter into individually lined cupcake tins. Bake for 12 minutes. To test, poke the centre of a cupcake with a toothpick. If done, the toothpick should be clean.

For the icing, blend all ingredients together. Spoon the icing into a plastic bag and cut the tip off of one corner of it. Squeeze the icing onto each cupcake.