The Cupcake of the Year!

My friend Shannon's Birthday was on Sunday. She loves chocolate and coffee and last year I made her a cake with just those items. It was a beautiful chocolate, espresso cake ! Yum, but this year I wanted to change it up a bit. My instructions were chocolate, dark chocolate and milk chocolate.  My inspiration was a beautiful black and gold cupcakes made by  Love and Olive Oil.  These are vegan cupcakes with the exception that I used 2 Tablespoons milk. However I used organic milk so it almost counts as all vegan.  Not really, but they were too delicious for me to worry or not if these cupcakes were healthy.  
The oil and coconut milk reacted in to some crazy patterns.
Foamy!
The yin and yang of coco powder and flour.  

I added a 1/4 of a cup of melted carmel to the batter for a kick of flavor, you could taste it in the batter, but not after it was baked.



The smell that filled my apartment (a few minutes before the cupcakes were done) was a rich, sweet, bakery-ish, died and gone to heaven chocolate smell. Warm and rich! Shiny cupcake goodness.

The true difference between these cupcakes and other chocolate cupcakes I have had or made is... they aren't super sweet.  The chocolate is so dark and rich, so chocolaty that you could fall into the dark beauty of these cupcakes. Like all beautiful things, these treats will sooth your soul and comfort your heart, it might normally be asking too much of a chocolate cupcake, but if any cupcake can do it, it is this chocolate cupcake that can. It is chocolate after all, miraculous chocolate!

Stephanie is trying to eat as I keep shoving the camera into her cupcake!

Cupcakes:

1 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup sugar, I added 2 additional tablespoons

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup special dark cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1/3 cup special dark cocoa powder

2 cups confectioners' sugar

2 tablespoons milk or soy milk

2 tablespoons carmel topping

Preheat the oven to 350˚ degrees. Line 2 muffin pans with paper liners, about 12. 

Whisk together the coconut milk, sugar, oil and vanilla extract and beat until foamy.  In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add to wet ingredients and beat until no lumps remain.

Pour into liners, about 1/4 cup of batter. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

For frosting, cream butter until smooth and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add cocoa powder and beat until Incorporated. Add 1 tablespoon milk and mix. Add confectioners' sugar 1/2 cup at a time and mix until light and fluffy 3 to 5 minutes total. Add carmel topping and mix well. If frosting is too thick add more milk and beat until fluffy, if it is too thick, add more sugar and beat until fluffy.  You want the frosting to keep it's shape when piped on to the cake. I  topped the cupcake with a milk chocolate covered coffee bean from Starbucks.