The Messiest Chocolate Cupcakes You'll Ever Eat: Also There's Hot Chocolate in Them

Our First Adventure

I figured the best place to start this whole shindig is with chocolate. These are probably the most chocolate chocolatey cupcakes that you will ever eat. I'm probably going to use the word 'chocolate' so many times in this post that I'll forget how to spell it.

Before we even get started, preheat your oven to 325 degrees. I always forget to do this so I'm telling you now.

Here's a list of everything you will need to successfully make Messy Chocalate Cupcakes:

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 2 cup sugar

Wet Ingredients:

• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup hot chocolate
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Alright. This is pretty easy.

First, you're gonna need an electric mixer. It doesn't have to be electric; if you're Amish or something you can just use a spoon. But that's hard work and this is supposed to be fun.

After you've acquired a mixer, dump in the right amounts of all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar). Mix it all up with a fork until it looks like chocolatey sand.

Delicious, chocolatey sand.

After you've gotten the dry ingredients all nice and sifted together, start adding the wet ingredients. Now it doesn't really matter, but I typically add the eggs, milk, vanilla, and vegetable oil first. And THEN....................

This is where it gets weird.

Make yourself a cup of hot chocolate. Like, get out a mug, fill it with hot water and mix in a packet of hot chocolate powder. I promise these cupcakes won't work if you don't pour in the hot chocolate. Weird, right?

I like to use the kind with mini marshmallows cause they're freaking delicious.

Pour the hot chocolate in with the rest of the ingredients and fire up the mixer. The cupcake batter should be very thin and runny, like chocolate cupcake soup.

Photo creds go straight to Nick Charlson.

Next, pull out two cupcake pans and line them with cupcake papers. Get a spoon or a small measuring cup or a ladle and start pouring the cupcake batter into the papers. For big, fluffy, delicious cupcakes, fill each paper about 3/4 of the way. If you want smaller, yet equally as fluffy and delicious cupcakes, fill each paper about 1/2 of the way.

Aluminum foil cupcake papers are my favorite cause they remind me of space.

Baking Pro-Tip: If after pouring the cupcake batter into the pan, you have a bunch of spots like this - 

Clean them up before you put the cupcakes in the oven, because otherwise they bake on and it is a pain to scrub off. 

Once you've got your pan nice and cleaned up, pop it in the oven for 25-30 minutes. I usually go for about 27 minutes but it really depends on the strength of your oven.

Before...

After!

Congratulations, your scrumptious chocolate cupcake bundles of heaven have arrived. Let them cool down for around an hour, or at least until they are no longer hot to the touch. The cooling process will speed up if you move them from the pan onto a plate/wire drying rack/Antarctica.

While you're waiting for them to cool, go ahead and get started on the frosting. You will need:

• 1/4 cup margarine, melted
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

For the frosting, pull out your trusty electric mixer again. Pour in the melted butter and cocoa powder and mix them together at a low speed. After they are mixed together smoothly, add in the vanilla and milk. You'll have a liquidy chocolate mess on your hands now, so add in the powdered sugar until it magically turns into frosting. It should be fairly stiff and able to hang off your whisk without running.

Once you've got your frosting together and your cupcakes together, the only thing left to do is combine them. There are probably 1,000 different fancy frosting techniques you could use to frost your chocolate cupcakes, but I typically stick with globbing it on there with a spoon and swirling it around. Feel free to use a knife, icing bag, or your hand if that's what floats your boat.

After all this hard work, you should now have...

DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES!!!

I'm so proud of you! We've gone on our first baking adventure together. All that's left now is to enjoy your cupcakes. And clean up your kitchen.

Be looking for the next post soon!