Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

I’m honestly not sure why it’s taken me so long to post a recipe for mint chocolate cupcakes on the blog. If you know me well, you know that mint chocolate anything is my favorite flavor combination – if it’s option at an ice cream or frozen yogurt place, you can be sure that I’ll have it. You just can’t go wrong!

Mint Chocolate cupcakes

My mom got a new oven awhile ago but being away from home, I haven’t been able to familiarize myself with the exact oven temperature and baking times. It’s been a struggle to take cookies and cupcakes out of the oven at precisely the right time – I’ve ended up with half a batch of slightly overdone cookies, and half a batch that’s just right. Or a batch of cupcakes that are annoyingly dry, but not dry enough to throw out. When I made these mint chocolate cupcakes, only one was burnt to a crisp on the bottom while none of the others were burned at all.

Having a stash of imperfect baked goods isn’t all bad, though – sometimes at work I have emergency cookie cravings. Those slightly ugly baked goods are a much-needed sugary pick-me-up when I’ve been indexing depositions or redacting investigative reports all day. And let’s be real, I’m not trying to walk to Au Bon Pain in the DC heat to pay $3 for a cookie.

Mint Chocolate cupcakes

Anyways, I digress. Back to the cupcakes – this doctored cake mix recipe will do when you’re in a hurry, or if you just have an extra box of devil’s food cake lying around (like me… I always have a box or two of cake mix sitting in the pantry because my mom buys them when they’re on sale). For the real deal, I like this chocolate cupcake recipe.

My favorite part about these cupcakes is the two-toned frosting. I hate preparing frosting and I don’t even particularly enjoy eating frosting, but piping it onto cupcakes is just extremely satisfying… am I weird? (Actually, don’t answer that question.)

Recipe: Mint chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients

For the Cupcakes

  • 1 package devil’s food cake mix
  • 1 (3.4 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 TB instant coffee granules dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water

For the Frosting

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp.
  • 10 oz. confectioners’ sugar, sifted
  • 1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 3-4 tablespoons heavy cream
  • green gel dye
  • 2 tsp pure peppermint extract

Instructions

For the cupcakes

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl with a hand mixer, add the cake and pudding mixes, oil, eggs, and water. Mix on medium speed for about 2 minutes until all ingredients are well combined and the batter is smooth.
  3. Using a large scoop distribute the batter between 20 muffin wells; about 3 tablespoons of batter per well.
  4. Bake in preheated oven for 18-23 minutes or until the tops of the cakes spring back when lightly touched. Allow cupcakes to cool inside muffin tins for about 10 minutes.
  5. Remove cupcakes from muffin tins and allow to fully cool on a wire rack. Once cupcakes are cool, prepare your frosting.

For the Frosting

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed for about 5 minutes.
  2. Turn the mixture down to low speed and gradually add in the confectioners’ sugar until it is completely incorporated. Add in vanilla, peppermint extract, and heavy cream. Turn the mixer back up to medium-high speed and beat the mixture for about 3-4 minutes or until light and fluffy.
  3. Scoop half of the frosting from the bowl into a piping bag and set aside.
  4. Add a tiny amount of green gel dye to the remaining frosting and mix until the color is even and you have a pretty mint green. You may need to add a drop or two of blue dye to cancel out the yellowy color from the butter. Scoop the mint frosting from the mixing bowl and into another piping bag.
  5. Fit a third piping bag with a large star tip, and slide the two colors of frosting into the bag. Rearrange the bags inside so they fit and test it to make sure the swirl is two-toned. (If these steps don’t make sense, try this tutorial)
  6. Pipe the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes in a circular motion, starting from the outside going in.

Servings: 20 cupcakes

Adapted from My Baking Addiction


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