TWD: Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

After 23 weeks in a row of baking along with the Tuesday's With Dorie gang, I've decided to take a vacation this week. I'm going to skip this week's recipe, Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes.

I baked about a bajillion cupcakes back in my cake-decorating days, and I just can't get excited about them anymore. That, and I've been extra busy this week.

I apologize to this week's host, Clara from I Heart Food 4 Thought. Please don't hate me, Clara! I'm sure they were delicious.

Since I'm bagging, I thought I'd at least share my favorite chocolate cupcakes and the recipe I use. I love the pink icing with white nonpareils against the deep, dark chocolate. They would be my favorite even without the decorations.


I made them to go with this Luis Vuitton purse cake.


For the LV logos on the cake, I used "icing sheets", which are very thin sheets of dried icing mounted on a plastic backing. Typically they are used in making edible images. I drew the logos on the icing sheets with edible markers (which took for-EV-er) and then applied the sheets to the freshly iced cake. The purse finishing details are made from fondant and the makeup pieces are made from white chocolate.

(Before I forget, if you'd like a chance to win a free cookbook, you can check out the post below this one.)

The recipe I use is a doctored cake mix. It comes from Rebecca Sutterby, a fantastic cake decorator located in Kansas. You can check out her award-winning cakes at Sugar Creations.

I halve the recipe for a batch of cupcakes. This recipe is moist and flavorful. Back in my cake decorating days I got so many comments along the lines of "this is the best cake I've ever had!". See the chocolate variation below.

White Almond Sour Cream Cake
From Rebecca (KS)

2 boxes white cake mix (I prefer Betty Crocker)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp salt

2 2/3 cups water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp real vanilla
2 tsp almond extract
2 cups (16 oz) sour cream
8 large egg whites

Place all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir together with a wire whisk. Add the remaining ingredients and beat on a low speed for 2 minutes. Bake at 325 degrees until cake tests done.

This recipe makes:
One 14” round and one 6” round or
One 16” round or
One 12” round and one 10” round or
One 12 X 18” sheet cake or
One 12” round and one 8” round and one 6” round
Two 9" squares

Half the recipe makes:
Two 8” rounds or
Two 6” rounds and 6 cupcakes

Double the recipe makes:
one 18" round + one 10" round
all 4 sizes in the Wilton petal pan set

One fourth the recipe makes:
two 5" rounds

For chocolate cake: use chocolate mixes, omit almond extract and substitute 6 whole eggs for the whites.

For liqueur flavors: substitute alcohol (such as champagne or Kahlua) for about 1 cup of the water in the recipe

For berry flavors: use frozen berries, thaw reserving the juice. Substitute the berry juice for part of the water in the recipe, and stir the berries in at the end.