Chocolate Cupcakes or Chocolate Cake
I make this recipe all the time, it's a combination of some old Betty Crocker recipes and a great glaze from the Cake Bible. Which is the baking book I give to people when they move out on their own. Get one, you won't be sorry.
Just a comment about lactose. Different things affect different people, my daughters can do butter in moderation and buttermilk when it's baked in something, if you can't, email me and I'll try to find a good substitute for you.
If making cupcakes, start with the glaze. If making cake, skip the glaze. Or just make it to eat. ;-)
Chocolate Cream Glaze
9 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream or 1/3 cup melted butter & 2/3 cup lactose free milk
Chop the chocolate as fine as possible, if you have a food processor, use that. The finer the chocolate, the easier it melts. Even with a food processor the chocolate must be rough chopped, segments no bigger than a dime. Heat cream or butter/milk mixture in a pan on the stove, just until it starts to bubble, try not to boil it, it gets messy fast. If you have a food processor add cream while the processor is running. If you don't have a food processor, melt chocolate over double boiler, you can use a microwave but you must be able to melt it on a very low temp, 30% or less. Add cream (milk/butter) to chocolate, all at once is fine then stir and put aside to cool. This will make too much for one batch of cupcakes, but plenty for two or just extra goodies.
Preheat over to 350°
Katt’s Favorite Chocolate Cake
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup water
¾ cup buttermilk
½ cup shortening (Crisco)
2 eggs, room temperature, cracked into separate bowl
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup baking cocoa
¼ cup canola oil
Sift together in a separate bowl, flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder and baking cocoa. Put aside.
In mixing bowl, cream together shortening and oil.
-Add sugar and mix thoroughly.
-Add eggs, one at a time. Break the eggs into a separate small bowl first, cracking against each other or the counter.
Mix together water, buttermilk, and vanilla in something you can pour from. Put aside.
Starting
with the dry bowl, add the ingredients taking turns
between dry and wet. (Only add about ⅓ at a time, mixing completely after each addition.) If using a stand mixer, barely turn it on after each addition of dry, that stuff flies everywhere. Just go super slow and try to contain it.
Scrape-down sides of bowl (with mixers off!!!, Mom I'm talking to you!) and finish mixing until completely blended. It will look kinda of curdled, that's the buttermilk, no worries.
Pour into greased and floured parchment-lined pans, or lined cupcake pans.
Bake at 350° until toothpick comes out almost clean, the crumbs should cling to the toothpick or knife a little, residual heat will finish. Cool. If making cupcakes, cool completely. The structure will not hold if the cupcakes aren't completely cool. If cake, well, it's kind of nice when the frosting melts a little.
Favorite Chocolate Frosting
4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
9 tablespoons baking cocoa
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla
4 1/2 tablespoons milk (can use lactose free milk)
Cream together the butter, oil and cocoa.
Slowly add sugar and vanilla, cream.
Add milk, cream until fluffy, scrape down sides until everything is thoroughly mixed.
Frosts 9 inch layer cake. Or lots of cupcakes.
To assemble the cupcakes, after they are cooled, bore out a hole, either with a cupcake borer or the underside of a large piping tip. Or even a spoon or knife would work in a pinch. Scoop in a little frosting, then cover the top of the cupcake with the glaze. After that has cooled and set up, or after a few minutes in the fridge, pipe or frost on the frosting. A trick about frosting, when you are using a piping bag, if you need to set it down to refill it, put it in a tall glass. It keeps the bag upright and open and you don't need to have 3 hands to fill it.
