Deceptively Delicious – Chocolate Cupcakes

Needed – flour, cocoa powder, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, eggs, oil, beets, and buttermilk. Seems pretty simple…..except for that can of beets staring at us. I felt weird even getting them at the store, sorta like I was lying to the cashier. I’m a hypocritical beet buyer!

This was originally for a 9 inch square baking pan, but I wanted to make cupcakes. I knew that a 9 inch pan would yield about 12 cupcakes. I only know that from several years of baking, so don’t count me as a genius or anything. On second hand, do. I’m a genius. Line your cupcake pan with cupcake cups because kids love them…..or something like that.

In  a large mixing bowl, beat the brown sugar and the oil. My brown sugar was a little lumpy, but that’s okay….it all came out good in the end. And they all lived happily ever after.

You’re going to use two egg whites and 1 whole egg for this recipe. At this point, add them one at a time, beating well after each addition. I like separating the egg yolk from the white…okay, so not really. I hate getting egg all over my hands. It just feels icky. But I do it. Why? Because I love cupcakes, that’s why.

I needed ½ cup pureed beets for this recipe, so I just eye balled it and stuck some down in my mini chopper and pureed them. I tried to not smell them……I failed. Ew.

Hello vanilla! Sorry I forgot you in the picture and the list of ingredients. I’m a doofus. To the sugar mixture you want to add vanilla, cocoa powder, beet puree, buttermilk, and vanilla.

Time to add the flour, baking soda, and salt! Beat it really well until it’s smooth. You could do it by hand, but why do that if you have a lovely hand mixer? I use mine a lot. Annie likes hearing it on. I guess she heard it from the womb.

Break out your cookie scoop. It gets the cups filled nicely without too much of a mess. Notice I said, too much. I’m messy. It’s a fact of life.

Fill up your 12 cups and pop them into the oven at 350 degrees. I think mine baked around 23 minutes. You’ll know they’re done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

See how pretty? Take them immediately out of the pan to cool on a wire rack. Do not ice them until they’re cool…..it will make your icing runny.

In a bowl, you want to beat all your icing ingredients together: cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar, cocoa powder, and vanilla. I left the cocoa powder out because I wanted white icing. Why? You’ll see. Beat until it’s nice and smooth with no lumps. Lumps scare kids.

Ice all your cupcakes however you want. I like making a little design on top…..but I’m sorta weird about decorating my food.

See why I wanted white? Cute!

Annie went hog wild over these. She kept seeing them on the counter in the box and saying, “More. More. More.” I think that’s probably a good review, don’t you think?