Patriotic Cupcakes

I'm a little late posting this great idea. Or, I'm early for next year, but I guess it doesn't need to be Memorial Day or the Fourth of July to be patriotic.

Basically, I only know how to make 2 cakes and this in one of them (the other is carrot cake). It's super easy to make, and is so so so good. The only thing is, the batter is really runny. The first couple of times you make it you might think you messed something up, but it's supposed to be like that. The hardest part is getting the batter evenly into the muffin tins because it's so thin that it's hard to scoop.

To top the cupcakes, I use a simple cream cheese frosting. See directions below on how to make the cool 3 color swirl. I'm really excited about it because I think I invented a new technique.



You can find recipes for black magic cake all over the internet , but mine is slightly different. After making this cake pretty much every day for a year while I worked in a restaurant, I had it memorized. The only thing that I had trouble remembering was the amounts baking soda and baking powder. The recipe called for 1 tsp of one and 2 tsp of the other but I could never remember which was which so I just started putting 2 of each and it turned out just fine.


Black Magic Cupcakes

1 3/4 cup flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup *buttermilk
2 eggs
1 cup hot, strong coffee (I use decaff, but whatevs)

Preheat oven to 350. Put paper liners in 24 muffin cups. Place all ingredients accept coffee in bowl of electric mixer. Mix until everything is incorporated. Scrape sides of bowl. With mixer running on low speed, slowly add the hot coffee. Once the coffee is mixed in, turn the mixer speed up to medium/high (too high and it will spray everywhere. Not that I've done that...) and beat for 2 minutes. Pour the batter into the muffin cups filling each about 2/3 way full. I have found that my big ice cream scoop is the perfect amount to make 24. It's kind of messy though. If you come up with a better method to fill the cups, please let me know. Bake for 15 minutes or until done. Cool and top with cream cheese frosting.

*I make my own buttermilk by putting 1 tablespoon of white vinegar into a measuring cup then adding enough whole milk to make 1 cup. I let it sit on the counter until I get the other ingredients ready, stir and viola! Buttermilk!

To Make the Swirl:
I didn't take any pics of the method because I was in a hurry to get them done (we were already running late) but I will explain it. I'll do a picture tutorial next time I make them. I divided the frosting into 3 bowls, colored one red and the other blue and left the last one white. Then I put the frosting in 3 separate pastry bags (being careful not to fill them up too much). I cut about 1/2 inch off the bottom of the pastry bags then put all 3 bags into one bag fitted with a huge star tip. Then twisted all of the bags together at the top and started frosting. The colors swirled together nicely but didn't blend together (aka, I had a red white and blue swirl rather than a light purple swirl).

To Make the Swirly Fireworks:
Make a 1/2 batch of royal icing (I used the recipe on my can of meringue powder). Pipe swirlies onto wax paper and allow to dry for a few hours. I painted luster dust on them to make them all sparkly. They were really cute. When they are dry, carefully free them from the paper using a spatula. They are really fragile, so be careful!