Chocolate cupcakes, how I love thee. I’ve been inspired by one of my friends to start this up again. She’s one of those cute little things that can take tissue paper, turn it into decorations and everyone goes “awww, that’s so cute!” Me, not so much. I usually try really hard, fail about three or four times and then miraculously get whatever craft I’m working on to sort of work. So that’s why I bake and cook. Being able to eat my mistakes is way more satisfying. It also allows me to get rid of the evidence way faster than waiting for the weekly trash pick up.
Today was a bit deary outside. Okay, a lot dreary with lots of rain and no plans but to sit around in my pajamas all day. So I threw in some laundry (it piles up so fast, where does it comes from?!?) and decided it was time to bake some cupcakes. I arranged my ingredients.
And then got to work. Mixed the batter and added about 1/3 of a cup of mini chocolate chips.
Lined my tins with the most girly cupcake liners I have and baked them for about 20 minutes. Then I realized I wanted to experiment. This is usually where things tend to go wrong, because I think you can substitute just about anything in a recipe. Believe me, it doesn’t always work. Like when I scoured our cabinets for cocoa powder. We don’t have any. But we did have hot cocoa mix. That’s the same thing, right?
Mixed about three big scoops into the remaining batter (avoiding the mini marshmallows) and went to town filling the tins with the new concoction. I have to say, it wasn’t a bad idea. They even turned out alright. Just a light brown look to them.
However, during all this time making these, I didn’t even consider that I had no frosting in the house, nor the ingredients to make it from scratch. Whoops. A few minutes searching around my brain for an alternative ultimately took me to the most recent episode of Cupcake Wars (that amazing show on Food Network where they compete and make cupcakes (who eats the leftovers??)). They had made this glaze and put it on top. Now, I know nothing about glazes. I once used a double boiler to make soap with my mom. Some homey craft she thought I’d love. Note: it is much easier to buy a bar of soap than mold it into the shape of a rose. Anyway, I decided to take my mini chocolate chips and make a glaze.
Half a cup of mini chocolate chips and a tablespoon of margarine, as well as half a tablespoon of water, using a glass pie pan as a double boiler.
It took about five minutes to get it pretty smooth, but it worked. Only problem was I didn’t make enough to cover all the cupcakes. Oh well, not everyone likes frosting. But, it was a successful afternoon. I ended up with these:
Now I just have to find someone to eat all these cupcakes. Thank God I have two roommates.
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