Category: general
These are the Divine Chocolate Cupcakes with Best Buttercream Frosting from Baked in Maine. They’re a lot less sweet than the M&M cupcakes. Which means you can eat more. (Also I’m getting the hang of doing the icing, hoorah)
The cupcakes
* 2 cups flour (sub. 1 cup whole wheat flour)
* 2 cups sugar
* 4 heaped Tbsp cocoa
* 226gm butter
* 1 cup boiling water
* ½ cup buttermilk (I make my own by adding lemon juice to milk)
* 2 eggs
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 tsp vanilla essence
Pre-heat oven to 180oC (350oF).
1. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.
2. In a saucepan, melt butter. Whisk in cocoa.
3. Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, remove from heat. Pour over the flour mixture, and stir lightly to combine.
4. In a measuring cup, add beaten eggs, pour the buttermilk, baking soda, and vanilla. (not sure why the baking soda is added with the wet ingredients)
5. Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into your pan and bake for 15-20 minutes (or until done).
Best Buttercream Icing
* 85gm butter, softened
* 2 2/3 cups icing sugar
* 2/3 cup cocoa
* 5-6 tablespoons milk
* 2 tsp vanilla extract
1. Beat the butter in a medium mixing bowl.
2. With the mixer on low, add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk, scraping sides of the bowl often.
3. Add vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy.
Categories
Return to Watridge Lake
The last time I passed by Watridge Lake I was 34 weeks pregnant, feeling too warm, with sore feet, and generally feeling as if I’d hiked far enough. We’d hiked through from Sunshine Meadows to Mount Assiniboine, and I’d already travelled 19-20km that day. I was kind of hoping for a travelator to take me home. Or a small helicopter. Perhaps a tame and friendly moose.
This time I returned with a baby on the outside, and a tame snow-shoer to pull along the Chariot.
It took us less than an hour to reach the lake! I was flabbergasted.
After having lunch on the far side, we returned home.
On the drive back to Canmore we came across some moose! They were standing on the road, and weren’t entirely sure what to do as I drove slowly up to them. After running along the road for a while, in a remarkably sheep-like fashion, they worked out how to dive off into the trees (where they glared at us balefully).
These are M&M cupcakes – based on the recipe from Starry Moon Cupcakes.
I’m getting the hang of this cupcake thing – this mixture turned out a little stiff, and I ended up with small cupcakes and a LOT of icing. Still tasty. VERY sweet.
M&M cupcakes
2 cups of flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup melted butter (about 90g)
2/3 cup milk
2 free range eggs slightly beaten
1 teaspoon of vanilla
baking M&Ms (I added a slightly random amount)
Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl, stir to combine.
In a separate bowl combine melted butter, milk, eggs and vanilla.
Pour into the dry mix, stir till combined, then add your M&Ms.
Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes or until skewer is clean.
Butter Cream Frosting
200gm butter at room temp
3 cups icing sugar
2-3 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
Cream the butter, sift in the icing sugar, mix well. Add essence, then just enough milk to get the right consistency (I didn’t add enough). Top with regular M&Ms.