Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes

I'm a part of an awesome mom's group.  One of my fellow moms organized a Mexican Margarita night in which she provided fajitas and margaritas, and the other people attending would provide appetizers and desserts.  I started searching high and low for the perfect Mexican chocolate cupcake recipe and after about a week of searching I found it.  I was in possession of it the whole time.  Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski is easily my favorite cupcake recipe book, and I have 4 of them.  The end result was an insanely moist chocolate cake in which one can taste a hint of warm cinnamon.  The group loved them (yay!) as did I and I'll remember next time to check my cupcake book before spending forever on the internet.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 c. all purpose flour

3/4 c. sugar

1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 t. baking soda

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/4 t. salt

3/4 c. lukewarm water

1/3 c. vegetable oil

1/4 t. white vinegar

1/2 c. finely grated Mexican chocolate, plus more for garnish

Cinnamon Buttercream

How:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line a standard 12 cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, 1/2 t. of cinnamon and the salt into a bowl.  Add the water, oil, and vinegar to the flour mixure.  Beat with an electric mixer on medium until just combined.  Add the 1/2 c. grated Mexican chocolate and beat on low speed until just incorporated.  

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 of the way full.  Bake until a toothpic inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 24-28 minutes.  Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes.  Transfer to the wire rack and cool completely, about one hour.

Frost with the buttercream frosting and sprinkle extra grated chocolate over top.

These can be refrigerated in an airtight container for 4 days and are best eaten when room temperature.

If you can't find Mexican chocolate (I couldn't), use semisweet and add and extra 1/2 t. of cinnamon to the batter.

~Original recipe found in this book

<a href="javascript:window.print()">Print Page</a>