That's Sweet!: Little Black Cupcakes

A church potluck gave me the excuse to try one of the gourmet cupcake recipes Taste of Home had in their special cupcake issue. Their official name is Texas Chocolate Cupcakes, but the lady said her husband called them Little Black Cupcakes. They are totally homemade - no cake mix required and they are super moist!

Texas Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup butter, cubed
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix flour, sugar, salt and soda, set aside. In a heavy saucepan, combine cocoa, water, oil and butter, bring to a boil. Slowly add cocoa mixture to the flour mixture, mix well. Combine eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and slowly add to the mix. Mix well, pour into muffin cups (3/4 full, batter is very loose) and bake at 350 for about 10-12 minutes. The tops will look wet when they are done, so poke one with a toothpick to check for doneness.

Eat as is...or cool completely and ice with caramel icing:

Caramel Icing
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1/4 cup milk
2 to 2-1/4 cups confectioners' sugar

In a heavy saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter and milk, stir over low heat until the sugar is all dissolved (it does not matter if the butter is melted or not), then cook over medium without stirring for about 3-5 minutes or until it starts to bubble in the middle. Remove from heat, pour into the bowl of your mixer and allow to cool to room-temp before adding confectioners' sugar, beat well.

The caramel icing is part of the original recipe, but I liked the cakes better than the icing and I think when I make them again, I will skip the icing altogether.

(Note: I recommend using cupcake liners to bake these in, but I ran out, so the one I took a picture of had a homemade, parchment paper liner that fell off when I took it out of the pan.)