Cupcake Friday!!

Happy Cupcake Friday!  Last Friday as part of my blog crawl post, I had a photo of cupcakes with toppers spelling "bliss," which described how I felt at that moment in my story.  I want to share the recipe with you because the cupcakes were also just that...bliss!  I  love the combination of chocolate and orange, so I did another variation of that.  These tasted identical to those chocolate orange things you can find around holiday time...do you know what I am talking about??

Anyway, I could not find a recipe that exactly matched what I wanted to make, so I adapted a few recipes to make the perfect orange dark chocolate chip cupcake with chocolate/orange frosting.  Yum!

I found a recipe for yellow cake in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and doctored it up a bit to fulfill my need for the perfect dark chocolate chip cupcake with a hint of orange.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons orange liqueur (instead of vanilla)
• the zest of 1 orange (not part of original recipe)
• 2 cups small dark chocolate chunks (not part of original recipe)

1.  Preheat oven to 375.  Allow butter and eggs to stand at room temp. for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, place baking cups into muffin tins.  In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
2.  In a large mixing bowl, beat butter on medium to high speed with mixer for 30 seconds.  Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until well-combined, scraping sides of bowl.  Beat on medium for 2 more minutes.  Add eggs 1 at a time, beating after each addition.  Beat in orange liqueur.  Alternately add flour mixture and milk to the butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition.  Stir in orange zest and dark chocolate chunks.  Pour into cupcake liners.  This recipe made 23 cupcakes...I guess I ate a cupcake's worth of batter.  Oops.
3.  Bake at 375 for about 20-22 minutes.

The dark chocolate frosting recipe I used is from Candace Nelson of Sprinkles Cupcakes and can be found here!  It is so easy and delicious...I only made one change..

Ingredients:

• 10 ounces bittersweet chocolate , chopped
• 1 pound unsalted butter , at room temperature
• 1 pound plus 8 ounces powdered sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon orange liqueur (instead of vanilla)
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Melt and cool chocolate (until just slightly warm). Beat butter until light and fluffy. With mixer on low speed, gradually add powdered sugar. Add salt, vanilla and sour cream and mix until very smooth. Add chocolate and mix until just incorporated.

*Don't over-whip and add too much air into the frosting. The consistency should be rich and dense, like ice cream!

Have a fantastic weekend!!!