Mocha Cupcakes

There are always those recipes that you remember as the ones that your family's obsessed with, and it usually goes back to your mother or grandmother making them for you when you were growing up. Those kinds of recipes are my favorite because everyone's so sentimentally attached to whatever it is and it's more than just the food itself.

A couple of my favorite recipes like that? Most definitely the chocolate chip bundt cake or the buttercream icing. Honestly, you can't go wrong with either, but topping the list for favorite family food is moca icing...though we all just call it 'coffee icing'. And this stuff is the best. I'm not kidding, we eat it by the spoonful (more on that later), and absolutely die when my mom or grandmother ices it on cakes. 

So that being said, this is a little bit of a late post, because I made these cupcakes on Labor Day. Yeah, I know, that seemed so long ago! It was at the same house and with the same people I went to the Memorial Day cookout at and made strawberry cake cookies for the first time... it was so great to close the summer with the same people that I started it with!

I was so excited to post it, but it was in the middle of Avocado Week, and I couldn't disrupt that! When the friend who was hosting the cookout found out I was bringing cupcakes, she was very concerned that they would have avocados in them...but no worries, there aren't any.

Yes, we even make fudge out of the icing. 

Some people are hesitant of this icing because it has coffee in it and they're not real big on the taste of coffee, but I promise, it's really good. The incredulous amount of sugar and chocolate in the icing takes away from the bitterness that some might find in coffee. It's good. And the beauty of it is that if it's too coffee-y for you, just add more sugar!

Mocha Cupcakes

yields 24 cupcakes

For the cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 cup & 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup & 1 tsp butter, softened
• 2 & 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 & 1/2 cup milk

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two muffin pan with liners, set aside. 
• Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa, and salt.
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in between adding each egg. Stir in the vanilla. Add in the flour alternately with the mix and beat well until creamy. 
• Fill each muffin liner a little bit more than 3/4 of the way full.
• Bake for 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. 
• While cooling, make the icing.

For the icing

Ingredients

• 2 lb bag of confectioner's sugar
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/4-1/2 cup coffee (depending on preferred consistency)
• 1 stick butter, melted

Directions

• Cream butter and sugar together, then mix in cocoa powder. Finally, add the coffee. 
• While cupcakes are still warm, drop a tablespoon of icing onto each cupcake. The warmth will allow for the icing to spread, but use a knife to cover the entire top of the cupcake. The icing will harden, so use it right away.
• Have extra icing?  Put it in spoonfuls onto wax paper and stick it in the refrigerator for about an hour! Enjoy!

xoxo,

Meredith