Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I feel like baking chocolate muffins/cupcakes today, so I browsed around and find this recipe which sounds so good. I modified the recipe a little bit by using less sugar and adding 80 grams of chopped 58% dark chocolate into the batter. I did an experiment a little bit with the frosting since I still had some chocolate ganache left, so I just added shortening, unsalted butter and powdered sugar into it. I sent some cupcakes to our little neighbor who turns 10 today. The chocolate muffins are divine and very chocolaty with or without the chocolate frosting. I really like the cake texture, so soft and moist. It will be definetely my favorite chocolate muffins.

At this occasion I also would like to thank Sefa at Food is Love for the Chocoholic award she gave and also for helping me doing the drop-down menu for my categories. This one is for you, dear...



Source: Joy of Baking and modified by Mindy



Ingredients:
1/4 cup or 25 gr Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 cup or 120 ml boiling hot water
1/4 cup or 57 gr or 4 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup or 100 gr granulated white sugar (I used 1/3 cup)
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (I used 2 tsp of vanilla essence)
2/3 cups or 95 gr all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
80 gr chopped your favorite dark chocolate (optional)



Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Line 12-muffins-tin with muffin paper cups
Combine the cocoa powder with the boiling hot water, stir well until smooth and set aside to room temperature
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, combine well then add the vanilla extract or essence. Combine again. Fold in the flour mixture and beat in a low speed until uncorporated. Add cold cocoa mixture, stir until smooth then fold in chopped dark chocolate
Fill each muffin paper cup with the batter evenly. Bake for about 17-20 minutes or until risen or until a skeewer or a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before do the frosting


NOTE:
Feb 2010
I made these muffins again today and combined the white sugar with demerara brown sugar (any kind of brown sugar will do) and all together amount of both sugars is 1/3 cup. I also added Rum to the batter.