Roopa
I told my friend I’d bake her some cupcakes for her student group fundraiser, and I felt it needed to be something Christmasey, being November and all. I tend to frequent Second Cup when I’m trying to study, and am kind of in love with their Candy Cane hot chocolate. It’s basically a white hot chocolate with peppermint in it, aka amazing. I decided to try and recreate this drink in cupcake form. It turned out quite well. I find that white chocolate gets overpowered really quickly in baking, but the icing was still pretty excellent.
I really enjoy that I happened to have snowflake sprinkles!
I wanted a pretty neutral base so that the icing would stand out, and just went with basic vanilla.
VANILLA CUPCAKES (24 medium)
INGREDIENTS
- 1-¾ cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 cup milk
- 3/8 cup oil
- 2 tbsp. apple sauce
- 2 tbsp. vanilla
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake tins with ~15 liners
- Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
- Mix milk, oil, apple sauce, vanilla, and apple cider vinegar together
- Combine wet and dry ingredients. Don’t overmix.
- Fill liners ~2/3 high. Bake for 12 – 18 minutes, depending on liner size.
ICING
INGREDIENTS
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup icing sugar
- ½ tsp. peppermint extract, heaping
- 70g white chocolate chips, melted
- ½ tbsp. milk
- pinch of salt
DIRECTIONS
- Cream the butter until soft. Add icing sugar until well mixed.
- Add salt and peppermint extract and mix well.
- Melt chocolate chips, and add to butter mixture. Mix thoroughly. Add milk (and add more as needed).
*Next time, I would start off with ¼ tsp. of peppermint extract, and add more from there as needed.
Chateau Gateau 