Hot Cocoa Cupcakes, Part I

The following cupcake recipe was invented by yours truly (oh shucks), and my roommate said it was the best i've made so far (ohhhhhh shucks).  So we're on the right track here.  I decided to do 2 fun things with it, but before I go into the grand scheme, let me just get the basic recipe down.  Okay.

Ingredients (24 cupcakes):
2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/3 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup applesauce
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup milk

1.  Preheat oven to 375F.

2.  Mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together.

I like to mix it around with a fork.

 

3.  In a larger bowl, mix the applesauce, yogurt, and sugar together until it becomes nice and homogeneous. 

4.  Add egg, vanilla, and milk.

5.  Slowly add the dry mix to the wet mix, little by little.  Whisk slowly, and careful not to overmix!

6.  Pour into a lined cupcake pan.

 

I also found these awesome foil liners that stand up on their own on a cookie sheet.  Score!

7.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Take a nap.  Sing a song.  Cuddle a puppy.

When you pull them out, they will look look something like this!

YUM.  If i had it my way, i would just eat these plain.  But that wouldn't be very interesting to blog about.

Now that you've learned how to make the cupcakes, let me show you what i did with them :D

Okay, so I had two visions with these cupcakes.  One was that, since I'm in the whole filled-cupcake zone these days, i would fill some of them with butterscotch pudding.  Here is the plan for Part I:

  

Okay, are you ready for Part I to begin?
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Chocolate n' Butterscotch Cupcakes

I let my cupcakes cool off.  In the meantime, i mixed up a batch of butterscotch Jell-O pudding.  The stuff is delicious.

Leave in the fridge for at least 10-20 minutes, or until you get a nice firm consistency such that you can do this.

Then I filled a piping bag with the pudding and injected away!

You kinda have to stab the cupcake hard at first, then slowly lift as you inject with the pudding.

And this will happen no matter what.

The cupcake, with its nice springy texture, will volcano some of the pudding back out.  No sweat, guys, no sweat.

Aww, let's admire these cute little things.  Hehe it's like they have an outie belly button.

Okay, then i covered these babies in some milk chocolate frosting (er...it was store-bought, so sue me).

And because I'm a crafter and scrapbooker at heart, i decided to make cute little signs for them so i can put them out and people will know what they are.

Um, how cute is this, exactly?

Answer: So cute.

But the cute isn't over.  See you back here for Part II tomorrow!

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For a printable version of the Hot Cocoa Cupcake recipe, please click here.