One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes (Martha Stewart)

I like Martha Stewart. To me, she is an elegant lady and can be very influencing in term of setting lifestyles and home-ware trends.

Although it seems to be every lady's dream to be Martha Stewart, it is not so much for me. I like Martha Stewart but she seems to be too perfect with her house keeping and cooking. I like my house to be clean but I also like it to be messily cosy. LOL!

To me, Martha Stewart is also a perfectionist and I think her website is always very perfectly written. She has a wide variety of recipes in her website and most of them seems pretty foolproof with concise instructions. For this reason, I would like to learn to cook or bake like Martha Stewart in this month and start with an extremely simple recipe baked by our mummy-and-son tag team.

These kid-friendly cupcakes are extremely amazing. 24 of these contain only 1 and 1/2 tbsp of oil and yet they are moist and delicious to eat.

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes

My son was lining the muffin tin.

Making the cake batter

What's next? Waiting for the cake to bake...

Decorating the cupcakes

And munch!

These cupcakes are not just for kids. These are mummy's nice and simple ones.

Here are the recipes from Martha Stewart website
(with my modification in blue)

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes
Make 18 to 24

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder  
(I used the Dutch processed one)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda (replaced by baking powder)
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tbsp safflower oil (replaced by rice bran oil)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350ºF (or 160ºC fan-forced)

Line standard muffin tins with paper liners; set aside. 

Sift together cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. 

Add eggs, warm water, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla, and mix until smooth, about 3 mins. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl to assure batter is well mixed.
 
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. 

Bake until tops spring back when touched, about 20 mins, rotating pan once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

Note: Using half of this recipe, I've baked 24 mini chocolate cupcakes at 160ºC fan-forced for 15 min.

Chocolate Ganache

8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (preferably 61% cacao)

(mine is 70% cocoa)
1 cup heavy cream
1/8 tsp coarse salt

Coarsely chop chocolate. A serrated knife is best for the job; its sawlike teeth grab the chocolate, breaking it up.
Bring cream just to a boil over medium-high heat. Pour over chocolate, and add salt. Let stand for 10 mins (don't stir - doing so will cool the ganache too quickly, making it grainy).

Stir with a whisk until smooth and shiny to break up any pieces and emulsify cream and chocolate.

Chocolate will often settle on the bottom or sides of the bowl. Scrape dish with a rubber spatula to incorporate all of it.

Note: When the cupcakes were cooled completely, we frost the cupcakes with 1/4 amount of the above chocolate ganach recipe and decorated them with colourful sprinkles.

Happy Baking
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