Trusted and Tried recipes

For V's birthday cakes, I used a total of 3 recipes for the cakes and 2 recipes for the frosting/ icing. I'll post the 2 cake recipes I liked, of which one was a new recipe and the other was tried and trusted recipe.

New Recipe Tried, Modified and Passed

Brownie Cupcakes

Adapted from: http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Brownie-Cupcakes

Original Ingredients and comments:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (aka plain flour)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (I omitted it since I was using salted butter)
• 4 squares unsweetened chocolate chopped (I assumed = 4 oz)
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter cut into pieces (assumed = unsalted butter - I used SCS salted butter)
• 1 cup granulated sugar (original called for 1.5 cups)
• 4 eggs lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract (I forgot to add but it was still good)
• 2 cups pecans chopped (optional) (didn't bother to add)
• Added: 1/2 cup cocoa powder (Van Houten or Tudor brand is a good choice)(adjust to own taste - see notes)

Since I made a variety of sizes, I am not sure how many standard cupcakes this would have made - the recipe says 20 though.

My Method using a stand mixer:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degree C.

2. Melt butter (I used microwave oven) and pour it over the chocolate. Stir until chocolate melts and well combined.

3. Pour into mixing bowl and add sugar. Mix on low to medium speed until sugar has slightly melted and mixture has cooled slightly (otherwise if it's too hot, your eggs will cook when you add it in).

4. Add eggs one by one - mix on medium speed. Add vanilla essence.

5. Add flour - mix on low speed else you get white clouds mushrooming from the mixer, until well combined.

6. Fill cups 1/2 to 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or so, depending on the size of your cupcakes (note: my oven doesn't have a fan, so it usually takes longer to bake. Do the usual skewer test - no crumbs stuck to your skewer when poked into the cake and taken out.

7. Cool on rack and then iced with your preferred choice of icing.

Note about the original ingredients: I generally don't like my cakes too sweet, so I normally reduce the sugar based on sight. I like my shortcuts too, so I normally use salted butter. I added cocoa powder because when I tasted the batter, it was lacking in the chocolately "oomph" so I just add cocoa powder until the batter tasted right. I estimated that I added about 1/2 cup of cocoa powder since I used at least 3 very heaped tablespoon of cocoa powder. Given that I normally don't do well with brownies, this is a good and forgiving recipe. It was really good to eat - better if I had added nuts.

Important note - this recipe is good if using paper liners - it doesn't detach itself from it so it won't tumble out from the paper cup, unlike the other butter cake recipe I tried.