I’ve been trawling the internet for the best and easiest chocolate cupcake recipe, and I think this is definitely it. Martha Stewart’s recipe for one-bowl chocolate cupcakes couldn’t be easier. A lot of cupcake recipes call for copious amounts of oil, but these use only three tablespoons of it, relying instead on yoghurt or buttermilk for moisture. Moist they are, and darkly chocolatey too.
Makes around 22 cupcakes.
* ¾ cup good quality unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
* 1 ½ cups caster sugar
* 1 ½ tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
* ¾ tsp baking powder
* ¾ tsp salt
* 2 large free range eggs
* ¾ cup warm water
* ¾ cup yoghurt or buttermilk
* 3 T canola oil
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the over to 180C. Line muffin tins with paper liners.
Sift together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and mix for about two minutes until smooth.
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each two thirds full. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the tops spring back with touched with a knife.
Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before icing.
Simple icing:
* 2 cups sifted icing sugar
* 4 T melted butter
* 2 T milk
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
Combine all ingredients and mix well until smooth. To make chocolate icing for some of the cupcakes, melt 3-4 blocks of dark (70% cocoa solids) chocolate with a teaspoon of butter, and mix into some of the vanilla icing.
