Spectacular Eats

Since cupcakes are all the rage right now and I have been assigned dessert for Easter dinner, I decided that’s a good excuse to try out some new cupcake recipes.  Who doesn’t love a good cupcake, right?  They’re pretty, easy to serve and provide a great excuse to buy a new cake plate (tee hee).  And what’s even better is that I can make them ahead and freeze them.

I  have Martha Stewart’s “Living” (from February) still sitting out in my baking station – waiting for a great excuse to make cupcakes.   So I broke it open and got to work.  That issue, by the way, has a number of fabulous cupcakes with amazing Martha pictures and recipes.  If you missed the issue, check for it at your local library.  It’s a good one.

Since I already have a great “go to” recipe for white cupcakes (found here: White Cupcake Recipe), I decided to try to perfect the chocolate cupcake.  I have a few chocolate cupcake recipes I like but none that I LOVE.
So the first cupcake recipe I tried was the “One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes”. This recipe has received a lot of fanfare on the Internet.  It has been listed by many cooking bloggers as their favorite chocolate cupcake.  Needless to say, that was enough for me to try it out.

The recipe went together pretty quickly and is amazingly easy for a Martha recipe.  The batter was really runny but pouring it into a measuring cup with a pouring lip made it easy enough to pour.  They baked up quite well and are pretty little specimens.

Now for the taste test…As much as I hate to admit this, I am not a huge fan of these cupcakes.  I would go so far as to say that I have made many cakes from a box that I liked better (gasp!).

Now, in Martha’s defense, I should note that I have read that there are many variations of this recipe floating around.  The recipe in the magazine is supposed to be different from the one in her baking book…which is not the same as the one she has in another cookbook.

And I may not have loved them but my son and his dorm buddies thought they were mighty tasty!  Wow, I can beat cafeteria food!

If you would like to give these a go, you can find the recipe at Martha’s site: Martha Stewart’s One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes.

Do you have a chocolate cupcake recipe I should try?  Any favorites?