I have what's probably going to be my definitive chocolate cupcake recipe. Vanilla still needs some tweaking, but these are really flavorful and moist. I baked them Friday night for Lillian's birthday and they're just getting stale today.
Adapted slightly from the chocolate coconut cupcakes in Tish Boyle's The Cake Book.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Prepare muffin pans: this makes about 27 (or 24 regular muffin size and a dozen mini-muffins, or 12 jumbo muffin size) - either line with cupcake papers, grease or spray with Pam.
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled to warm (use a microwave or a water bath)
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1.75 cups flour (212 g)
.25 cup cocoa (20 g)
1.25 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.5 tsp salt
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1 cup (2 sticks, 227 g) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (400 g) sugar
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup (242 g) sour cream
.5 cup (120 ml) whole milk
opt: 1 cup (80 g) sweetened flaked coconut
Melt the chocolate before prepping the pans and assembling the rest.
Sift [flour through salt] together (I don't bother unless the cocoa is lumpy) and set aside.
Put butter in bowl of electric mixer and beat until creamy, about 1 minute. Gradually add the sugar and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each until incorporated and scraping the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla and the chocolate.
At low speed mix in the following: 1/3 flour mix, milk, 1/3 flour mix, sour cream, rest of flour. Stir just until combined. If using coconut, add it with the last batch of flour.
Scoop into pans. I put about 1/4 cup in a standard muffin pan and a tablespoon in my mini tins.
Standard size bakes in 18-22 minutes, mini size bakes in about 10 minutes, jumbo takes 25-30. Turn them around halfway through. Let them cool in the pan for a few minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.
I like these with Lazy Pseudo Buttercream -- that is, the recipe on the back of the powdered sugar box (1 lb powdered sugar, 1 stick butter, .25 tsp salt, 1 Tb. vanilla, mix well, add milk until it's frosting consistency). Peppermint extract in the frosting goes nicely with the chocolate, too.
I put coconut in a partial batch of these once and it was a nice chewy addition, but I think I generally like them better without.