Spice Up Your Life

I'm back from spending the last 2.5 weeks on the west side of the state working at a camp for children with bleeding disorders.  Amazingly, I received school credit for basically being a kid again (oh, and working in the camp health center, too).  I worked with amazing co-counselors, learned a lot about what it's like for children living with hemophilia, and even got to swim in a lake and do arts and crafts.  I will be blogging about the cupcake decorating class that I did with the older campers in the future (did you really think that I wouldn't think about cupcakes just because I was at camp?!).

These are a variation on a Martha Stewart's Cupcakes recipe.  I didn't love them.  They taste a lot like a chocolate version of gingerbread.  I don't like gingerbread, but Sara (who makes her own gingerbread) enjoyed these cuppies.  Some of the people I fed them to expressed disappointment that they weren't as chocolatey tasting as they looked.  If you want something different and like spice, give these a try.

Chocolate-Spice Cupcakes - Makes about 12

•  5 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2/3 cup boiling water
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup unsulfured molasses

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.  Line cupcake tins with paper liners
2. Stir baking soda into the boiling water (it will bubble)
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
4. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together the b utter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy.
5. Add the egg and mix well.
6. Add the molasses and baking-soda mixture and beat until well combined.
7. Using low speed, slowly add the flour mixture.  Continue to mix until the batter becomes relatively smooth (it may be somewhat lumpy when you spoon it into the liners).
8. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full of batter.  These cupcakes will rise beautifully (remember all that baking soda you added?) so don't be too generous when dishing out the batter
9. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean.

I didn't try this, but I wouldn't be surprised if these taste yummy out of the oven warm with some butter.  OK, everything pretty much tastes yummy with some extra butter....

I topped these with some sweet buttercream frosting to even out the spiciness and some orange sugar.  Honestly, I don't know that I will be making these again, but if you try these out let me know how you liked them!