Ms. Meg's Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes

Once Upon a Plate is pleased to announce it's first guest author; my cousin Meg!  She is a 15 year old spitfire who is not only a talented student, athlete, and kind-hearted lady, but man can she make an incredible cupcake!  Her story and recipe are below...and dont wait too long to make these, they will soon become your staple dessert-  Enjoy!

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I love cupcakes. They are definitely the most adorable and delicious kind of cake! So, when Aunt Jane invited us over for dinner in Maine, I decided to make some to bring. After thinking about lots of different flavors, I chose mint and dark chocolate because they would look pretty and taste really good together! So off to Hannaford’s we went to get cupcake materials for some minty Maine madness. 

The night before, I made the cake part of the cupcakes and left them covered overnight. They were really moist and yummy and it was interesting to use dark chocolate instead of regular chocolate. The next day was frosting day, the best part. The peppermint extract smelled bad by itself but when it got mixed in with everything else it tasted really good…so we ate tons of it while frosting the cupcakes! 

Lizzy appeared on her kayak just in time to help out with piping the frosting and making chocolate curls with a dark chocolate bar. In the end, they were a success! The frosting and the cake went really well together, and of course there is no better time to eat a cupcake than after a delicious lobster dinner on a beautiful summer night in Maine!

Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 ¾  cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup Hershey’s dark chocolate cocoa

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

Line muffin cups with paper baking cups. Heat oven to 350º.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Fill cups 2/3 full with batter.

Bake 22-25 minutes.

Makes 30.

Mint Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks butter

4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted

¼ cup milk

1/8 teaspoon all natural peppermint extract

Beat butter until creamy, scrape bowl.

Add 4 cups of powdered sugar, the milk, and the peppermint extract. Beat until combined.