- Hey, I'm John Cannell, and today on "Preppy Kitchen,"
we're making fluffy, fudgey chocolate cupcakes.
So let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350 so it's nice and hot.
Then grab your muffin tin and line with cupcake papers.
Set that aside, and now into a large bowl, I'm adding
one and a half cups or 180 grams of all purpose flour.
And you'll notice I'm using a scale.
If you don't have one,
you can definitely use measuring cups.
However, if you just scoop flour in and level it off,
you're packing it in, please don't do that.
Instead, grab a spoon, fluff your flour up,
and sprinkle it in like it's a light, gentle rain.
Level it off, and that's how you get an accurate measurement
with measuring cups.
One and a quarter cups of granulated sugar,
that's 250 grams, and this'll give you a cupcake
that's like perfectly sweet on the less sweet side,
because you're gonna frost this,
and you don't want to have like a sugar overload,
so I feel like it's a perfect amount.
If you wanna reduce the sugar, you can.
It'll be less sweet, but it'll also be a harder,
less soft and fluffy cupcake.
It'll just be breadier.
So the sugar softens anything it's in,
as well as making it sweet.
To fluff things up,
three quarters of a teaspoon of baking soda.
The baking soda is gonna react with an acid that we add.
The acid is the buttermilk.
I also want a quarter cup of cocoa powder,
and whenever you use cocoa powder, you need to sift it.
It just has to happen.
Look inside of there, it's all rocks, take a look.
See all those boulders?
That's not cool.
Quarter cup is 25 grams.
(upbeat music)
So many cocoa boulders in here,
just push those through the sieve.
In most recipes, any kind of sifting is totally optional,
except when you use cocoa powder.
Cocoa powder doesn't have sugar.
It has a lot of fat in it, and it just clumps up naturally,
so do yourself a favor and break out that sifter.
I also want a quarter teaspoon of salt for balance.
I'm adding a little bit more,
'cause I like things extra salty.
Grab a whisk.
The scale is done.
And just whisk this up until you see no more streaks.
Whisk, whisk, whisk.
If you've ever made a cake
or even a cupcake where there's a big divot in it,
chances are that section didn't have the leavening agent
like baking soda or baking powder,
and it's because you didn't whisk enough,
so whisk, whisk, whisk.
All right, set this aside.
Grab a medium bowl,
and it's time to get to our wet ingredients.
Into my medium bowl,
I'm adding one large room temperature egg.
For any baked good that's not pastry,
you want room temperature to warm ingredients.
Half a cup of buttermilk,
this gives you a wonderful little bit of tang,
and the acid in it also makes the cupcake softer,
and reacts to the baking soda, it does so much.
If you wanna make this recipe,
but you don't have buttermilk at home, it's totally fine.
Use an equal amount of regular whole milk
and one tablespoon of vinegar.
Just mix it in, and the acid from the vinegar will do
all the magical things that buttermilk does.
In a chocolate cupcake, you don't tend to use butter.
Butter is wonderfully flavored.
I love it for many other things,
but the flavor gets lost and it's wasted.
Also, you might be refrigerating these,
and you want them to come out
of the refrigerator pillowy soft.
Doesn't happen with butter,
so we're gonna use half a cup of oil,
and you can use any mild oil you want.
This is veggie oil, but I'm gonna give you a secret,
and it makes such a difference in this.
You can also use olive oil.
Olive oil is magical in cakes.
In fact, my favorite cake that I make
for my birthday is an olive oil cake.
So if you wanna do some experimenting, give that a try.
I'm finishing this off with two teaspoons
or 10 mils of a nice vanilla, kind of optional,
but I love the depth of flavor it adds.
Whisk this together until it's nice and smooth.
And I just wanna tell you,
there's a couple optional things you could add here.
A teaspoon or two of espresso powder,
ah, it'll really wake up the chocolate flavor.
You're not gonna taste the coffee.
I'm not doing that though,
because my boys do not need any caffeine at this time.
And you could also add spices you love,
like sometimes I like to add a teaspoon
of cinnamon and a quarter teaspoon of cayenne
for like a Mexican hot chocolate vibe.
But you could add any of your favorite spices, like cardamom
or some allspice, and really make this recipe your own.
(whisk tapping)
All mixed up, Let's combine the wet and the dry now.
Pour that right in,
and now we're gonna combine this
just until the flour disappears.
Aside from mismeasuring flour,
the other thing that goes wrong
for people at home is over mixing batters.
It can change everything.
Instead of being fluffy and melt in your mouth
and just amazing, your baked good is gonna be dense,
and gummy, and it even will taste different
just because of the way the cake dissolves on your tongue.
I think it can be confusing for people at home,
because a lot of boxed mixes tell you to mix things up
for like one or two minutes, and that is
just because they're using boxed cake science magic,
but with your natural ingredients that you're using
for home cooking, this is not the case.
No more streaks left,
now it's time to divide our batter
among our 12 cupcake papers, and then pop this in the oven.
And don't think I forgot about the frosting.
Fill each paper about three quarters of the way full.
(upbeat music)
My cupcakes are filled.
Let's pop these into the oven 350 for 20 to 25 minutes,
or until the centers spring back to the touch.
In the meantime, we're gonna make
an amazing chocolate frosting to top these off with.
In you go.
While our cupcakes bake,
let's make a delicious, really easy chocolate frosting.
So into the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment,
or a big bowl if you're using a hand mixer,
I'm adding three sticks, one and a half cups,
or 339 grams of unsalted room temperature butter.
We're gonna whip this up on medium high
for about five minutes until it's completely transformed
into a fluffy white cloud of butter.
(mixer whirring)
Okay, in the meantime, I have 50 grams of cocoa powder,
that's half a cup, but of course it is all rocks,
so I'm gonna sift it out.
(mixer whirring)
Your buttercream needs salt for balance,
otherwise it's just too sweet,
so we're gonna add three quarters of a teaspoon of sea salt.
(mixer whirring) In you go.
If you wanted to,
salted butter could have been used instead.
Just don't add any extra salt.
(mixer whirring)
Don't forget to scrape your bowl down at least once.
(mixer whirring)
Oh boy.
The top is so light and beautiful,
bottom is so dense and unmixed.
All right, keep mixing.
(mixer whirring)
I have to show you this, 'cause it's pretty magical.
Look at the difference
from the butter we started with to the butter now.
The color is totally transformed,
and the texture's lighter than light.
That is so pretty.
It's like a cloud.
Now we're gonna add our sifted cocoa powder,
and just like before with the cupcakes,
this is Dutch processed.
It gives you a wonderful,
really rich chocolate look and flavor.
We'll mix that up on low now, low, low, low,
and add about one and a half teaspoons of vanilla
for a little bit of extra flavor.
Increase speed to medium.
We wanna get this nice and completely mixed.
I see beautiful chocolate deliciousness.
You see pure white butter on the side.
So scrape the bowl down and mix, mix, mix.
(upbeat music)
Okay, mix, mix, mix.
(mixer whirring)
Okay, this looks great.
I just wanna show you beautiful milk chocolate color.
Now we're gonna add six to eight cups of powdered sugar.
It's really to taste in how you want the frosting to be,
so add a cup at a time and mix on low
until everything's in there.
And between each cup of powdered sugar,
we'll add about a tablespoon of heavy cream.
You want your frosting to be beautiful, silky,
and it's like melt on your tongue,
and if you don't add any liquid in, it says too much sugar,
so it really has to be balanced.
Second cup, and just repeat until all the sugar's in.
You can give it a taste
at the sixth cup mark and see how you like it.
And six cups.
You'll be adding between a third
to a half a cup of cream in all.
(mixer whirring)
And I will scrape the bowl down.
After everything's in, increase to medium low,
and then beat this for just about a minute
so it's nice and fluffy.
(mixer whirring)
Give it a taste.
(upbeat music)
That's very nice.
Let's frost these cupcakes.
Transfer your buttercream into a piping bag
with a tip of your choice, this is an 869,
and then just pipe to your heart's content.
These cupcakes are equally delicious
with vanilla or strawberry buttercream.
For me, a cupcake has to be a sandwich.
(upbeat music)
Mm, enjoy.
(upbeat music)
Oh my gosh, so soft, pillowy, fluffy,
but fudgey and just pure chocolate flavor, mm.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe,
and if you like this video, check out my cupcake playlist.
(upbeat music)