Graveyard Cupcakes (Devils Food with Flour Frosting)

Yeah for Halloween! My husband brought these to his job the day after I made them and they were all gone before lunch! He stopped in the middle of his day to let me know that he'd received a slew of compliments on them! That definitively made my day! I used (2) new recipes for these cupcakes and I'm glad I did! The Devils Food is by far THE best chocolate cupcake I've ever made! And the flour frosting- blew me away. I thought I was taking a long shot making a flour based frosting (come one seriously!? flour!?) but I'm so glad I took the leap! It's so good! Not a super sweet frosting- this is light and while still sweet doesn't leave you on a sugar high. I really liked it for a nice change of pace. If I did these particular cupcakes over again (and why not?! they rocked) I would add a layer of frosting to the bottom before piping with the grass effect. I would have preferred more frosting.
(I'm having some fun with photo editing..can ya tell?! lol)

Devils Food Cupcakes (seriously the best chocolate cupcake) printable
(adapted from: What the Fruitcake?)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup Strong Hot Coffee (brewed or instant)
3/4 cup cocoa
12 Tablespoons (stick and 1/2) Unsalted Butter, room temperature
2 cups packed brown sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk**
1 tsp vanilla

**If you’re out of buttermilk or don’t always keep it on hand you can use 1T lemon juice or 1T white vinegar to make it. Add your 1T of lemon juice or vinegar to bottom of a 1c liquid measuring cup and add enough milk to make 1c. If you’re making buttermilk- do this first so that it has time to set.

Directions:
Oven to 350. Line (2) muffin tins with liners and set aside.

Make your coffee. I used a packet and 1/2 of instant to 3/4c of hot water and blended. Mix in your cocoa into the hot coffee until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.

Sift your baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour together. Set aside.

Mix buttermilk and vanilla- also set aside.

Cream your butter and brown sugar together in your mixer until nice and combined. Ya know creamy like.

Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each just until they’re incorporated. Don’t forget to scrape down the bowl.

Now add your flour and milk mixture. Alternating in 3 parts. Starting with and ending with flour. Mixing just until combined each time. It’ll go like this: 1/3 of flour, mix. 1/2 of milk, mix. 1/3 of flour,mix. Other 1/2 of milk, mix. Rest of flour, mix. (mixing each time just until combined and often scraping down bowl)

Now add in your coffee/cocoa mixture. It’ll look a bit weird. But mix until combined. I found it best to start with my mixer mixing, but to finish by hand making sure I really scraped the bowl to get it all in.

Now- equally divide the mixture into your prepared lined muffin tins. I use a handy dandy ice cream scoop and level it off each time.

Bake in oven for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick in center comes out clean. They’re very beautiful aren’t they?

Cool in pan for 5-10 minutes before removing them to continue cooling on a wire rack.



Flour Frosting (no judging until you try this and are convinced) printable
(via The Pioneer Woman)

Ingredients:
5 Tablespoons Flour
1 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup Butter
1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

Trust me on this okay!?

Directions:
In a small saucepan or skillet ( I use skillet so it heats faster and I feel like I can whisk more to ensure the flour is broken up), whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix. Pay attention to this! It’s very true! Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature.

It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. REALLY beat it! You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream. I probably had this beating for 3-4 minutes. It’ll really start to look great!!

Notes:
This pipes fine. I wouldn’t use it to decorate a cake (as in, it does not crust). However I think it makes beautiful swirls for cupcakes (and I’m a fan of more is better of this frosting- so hard to stop tasting it!) And would be great for a dessert cake. I’m typing this and thinking of the next excuse I can use to make it.

It’s supposed to be best served the day it’s made. However, I refrigerated it (butter) and served it the next day after it came back to room temp and it was still just as good! I kept some in the fridge and you’ll want it to come to room temp before attempting anything with it. It does take color just fine!

Assembly:
I used double chocolate filled Milano Cookies and used Americolor Gourmet Food Writer to write on them- and inserted them into the back of the cupcake after frosting them. I added little bones to the crushed oreo dirt mound for oomph.

Happy Halloween!