Mocha Crunch Cupcakes

It's official - I have a new favorite chocolate cupcake.   (I do feel some pangs of guilt over the dethroning of my old favorite - the dark chocolate ganache cupcake - but I'll get over it.)  I ran across this recipe on bakersroyale.com.   This deep, dark, rich, coffee infused cupcake is the base for her double chocolate mocha crunch cupcake, her toffee crunch cupcake, her biscoff and Kahlua cupcakes, her caramel cappuccino royalle cupcakes and several others.  It is really great basic chocolate cupcake that you can transform into all sorts of great cupcake creations.  (By the way, I've tried almost all of her other cupcake recipes that use this same cake recipe.)

Mocha Cupcakes
1 cup flour
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup plus 2 Tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter. melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons instant coffee
1/2 cup hot coffee

Chocolate Sauce
2/3 cup dark chocolate
2 Tablespoons heavy cream
4 Tablespoons powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons water

Combine flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda and salt.

Stir instant coffee into hot coffee.

Combine eggs, butter and vanilla.

Add egg mixture to dry ingredients and beat on medium speed for 1 minute.

Pour coffee mixture into batter and stir until combined.

Scoop (or pour) batter into muffin cups.

Bake 18 minutes at 350.

Cool completely on wire racks.

Frost with chocolate buttercream.  Put in freezer for 10 minutes.

Chop whoppers, reserving 1 for the top of each cupcake.

To make chocolate sauce:  Heat chocolate and whipping cream in the top of a double boiler, without stirring. 

Stir melted chocolate.  Stir in powdered sugar. 

Stir in enough water to make pouring consistency.

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Spoon chocolate sauce over frozen buttercream.  Sprinkle with chopped whoppers.

 Finish with another dollop of buttercream and a whopper.

I was afraid that these cupcakes would only really be appreciated by coffee lovers but the truth is, they have universal appeal.  My non coffee drinking husband, who is always willing to be a cupcake taster, thought my new cupcakes were super delicious.  By the way, kids are also big fans of these yummy mocha cupcakes.  (That is bad news if you wanted to save a few cupcakes for a rainy day - they are not going to last very long.)

Ciao!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe