Valentine's Cupcakes

My mom gave me this cupcake cookbook for Christmas and holy crap it is awesome.

I've been using every excuse to bake cupcakes lately--snow in the forecast?  stout cupcakes!--and Valentine's Day was no exception.  I opted to make Martha's "One-Bowl" Chocolate Cupcakes for Valentine's Day, and as the name suggests, they're super easy because they use...wait for it...one bowl.

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes

1.5 cups all-purpose flour

0.75 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1.5 cups sugar

1.5 teaspoons baking soda

0.75 teaspoons baking powder

0.75 teaspoons salt

2 large eggs

0.75 cups buttermilk

3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used apple sauce instead to cut some calories)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

0.75 cups warm water

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Line muffin tins with paper liners
3. Dump all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and combine
4. Add the wet ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined
5. Divide the batter among 18 lined cups
6. Bake 10 minutes, then rotate the tins in the oven
7. Bake another 10 minutes
8. Let cool, then frost and decorate

I used a very basic frosting and then topped each one with a cherry.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting

3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

4 cups powdered sugar

0.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

I halved this recipe--the original recipe made 4 cups of frosting, which I thought was a little unnecessary.  Two cups worked just fine for 18 cupcakes. 

1. Beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes
2. Reduce speed to medium, add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time.  After every 2 additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds, then return to medium (this aerates it)
3. Add vanilla and beat until smooth

The result?  Freakin' amazing.  The cupcakes were moist (even though I LOATHE that word) and delicious and the frosting was perfect--not to heavy, not sickeningly sweet, and just perfect.