
Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Best Chocolate Cupcakes Ever. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The recipe was submitted by Penny, who adapted it from a Nestle recipe card.
Robyn’s Take:
This week’s recipe was submitted by Penny, who adapted it from a Nestle recipe card she got a few years ago (which it says right up there in the beginning of this post, so I don’t know why I feel the need to tell y’all again. But I am! So there!)
Your ingredients: chocolate fudge cake mix with pudding in the mix, instant chocolate pudding, sour cream, corn oil (Penny says any vegetable oil will do, but she thinks corn oil gives it the best flavor), eggs, chocolate chips. Not shown: warm water.
This is a very difficult and technical recipe, so PLEASE just TRY to follow along, okay?
Throw everything in a mixing bowl.
Mix it.
If you’re a total klutz like me, you might accidentally bump the switch to the mixer so that some of the stuff in the bowl goes splashing out onto the counter.
Just scrape it up the best you can, and toss it back in the bowl. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.
Now, this recipe is meant for cupcakes, but I am OVER cupcakes. I am useless when it comes to making them the same size, and I have a hell of a time getting them out of the tin in one piece (and don’t even get me started on those damn cupcake liners, which I HATE peeling off of cupcakes because half the damn cupcake peels off with the liner, grrrr.) Cupcakes are just not my thing, is what I’m saying – although if YOU want to make me cupcakes and have better skills in that area than I do, you should certainly feel free to do just that.
So I made a cake instead, in a Bundt pan – lucky for me, Penny had included the baking time for a cake as well as for cupcakes.
Lookit those scrumptious chocolate chips.
Penny recommended using a cream cheese flavor frosting. I was going to just go ahead and use my Best Buttercream Frosting instead. But then I decided to ask Fred what he wanted, because sometimes I like to let him think he has a choice when it comes to that sort of thing. He wanted chocolate frosting, so FINE. Chocolate frosting it was – I just used the Best Buttercream Frosting recipe, added 1/2 c. Hershey’s Cocoa Powder, and an additional splash of heavy cream, and it was perfect.
And the verdict? Oh, holy cow. This is a damn good cake! It was perfectly moist, perfectly flavorful – and I don’t know what it is about the texture of chocolate chips in a cake that is SUPER EXTRA AWESOME good, but it was the perfect touch to this recipe. This recipe’s going into the recipe box (when I get around to it, so… sometime in 2020), and I’ll definitely be making it again!
My rating: phenomenal. Fred’s rating: “really good, but you know, I don’t like chocolate cake as much as you do, so” (and then I tuned him out.)
“You keep making recipes that I can’t eat, and I’m about to take that personally, stupid lady.”
Thanks for the submission, Penny!
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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!
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Nance’s Take:
You should probably know that Robyn and I discussed this recipe at the beginning of the week (we were talking about how I would be late-again). This is exactly what was said regarding this recipe (cut and pasted from emails)…
Nance: Did you make the actual cupcakes – when I saw that she said you could make a bundt cake – I did that. NO FUSSING!
Robyn: Ha – it looks like we’re both cupcake haters! I made the Bundt cake, too. I’m not skilled enough to make cupcakes. Either I make some way too small and some way too big, or I drip batter all over the damn tin. Drives me nuts!
Nance: ROBYN – GOD DAMMIT
I cannot believe you made the BUNDT cake.
Robyn: This is just like all those damn times when you say something and I say the exact same thing! No one who reads us is going to be the slightest bit surprised that we both made the cake! 😀
So now you know why Robyn and I were never Scout Leaders or voted President of the PTA. We just cannot be counted on to bring the damn cupcakes.
Making this was a piece of cake (har-dee-har), but I have to admit that I was a little bit concerned about how thick this got when I was mixing it. It should probably be noted that I chose to use a sugar-free cake mix and sugar-free pudding. I don’t think they make sugar-free chocolate chips. I should correct that and say that I probably wouldn’t buy sugar-free chocolate chips anyway. Oh hell, I only bought the sugar-free cake mix because it was on sale and the pudding so Diabetic Rick could have it as a snack. Fuck sugar-free. It’s all POISON anyway.
I might be losing my mind a little bit here. Please ignore.
Felina is concerned about my mental well-being and the fact that I have so much sugar-free shit in my home. Please note the huge can of Crisco in the background. We’re not that healthy around here.
This bundt pan is beat to fuck, but I love it and will never get rid of it. You know what drives me crazy? That mess of cake batter on the left side of the pan. Pisses me right the fuck off. NOTHING that I do in the kitchen is neat and/or tidy. I have tried a million times to cook like those women that are comfortable in the kitchen and it always ends up looking like raccoons were having a bake sale.
Here, look at The Beagle’s ass instead of my gross pan.
I thought those cracks were going to make this cake a huge fail.
But when I turned it over it came out okay.
I didn’t bother to wait for it to cool before I started slicing it. I should have waited so the chocolate chips could have firmed-up a bit. We tried it when it was warm and, of course, everybody loved it. It’s freaking chocolate-chocolate cake! I also liked the fact that I didn’t have to make frosting for it.
I don’t have anything else to say so here’s a picture of Felina rolling her tongue. Weird, huh?
- 1 chocolate fudge cake mix with pudding in the mix
- 1 4-oz pkg instant chocolate pudding mix
- 8 oz sour cream
- ½ c. vegetable oil (recommend: corn oil, but any vegetable oil will do)
- ½ c. warm water
- 4 lg eggs (Penny reports that 3 eggs will work, too, if you realize you don't have enough eggs on hand)
- 1 c. chocolate chips (I used semisweet)
- 1 container of frosting, or make your own (Penny recommended cream cheese frosting)
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Dump all ingredients (except frosting) in a large mixing bowl. Mix until all ingredients are combined and batter is smooth (about 3 minutes). Scrape down bowl and beater, and beat for an additional 30 seconds.
- Pour batter evenly into greased cupcake tins, filling each tin about ⅔ full.
- Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
- ALTERNATELY, pour batter into a greased Bundt cake pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350ºF.
- Makes 24 - 30 cupcakes, depending on your cupcake tins.
- Alternate suggestions (from Penny) : substitute rum or Kahlua for the water.
sounds like a cake my college roommates mom used to make and mail to us – triple chocolate and OMG (and now I’m hungry)
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to reach through my computer screen as much as I do with this post..
*drool*
Yay! you liked my recipe. I’ll also add that the cupcakes freeze well.
Hint: I use one of these http://preview.tinyurl.com/l7clm4d to scoop the batter into cupcake tins. The #16, 2-oz size is just the right amount for each cup, and you can throw it in the dishwasher.
Not sure what I did wrong with that link, but try this:
http://www.amazon.com/Vollrath-Company-47153-Squeeze-2-Ounce/dp/B00125UR4Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384469573&sr=8-2&keywords=vollrath+%2316+dishers
I actually have one of those, and yet STILL I cannot make uniform sized cupcakes to save my life! I know, it’s sad. 🙂
That’s just because you’re simple, Robyn. LOL
Au contraire, Nance, it’s because she’s complicated.
I never worry about same-sized cupcakes. Life is too short. the small cupcakes get more frosting ; )
Life is so short that I would rather go to the bakery and pick up a dozen of cupcakes. This way I don’t have to clean up anything. 😀
Thanks so much for the info. regarding the scoop! I saw a tip the other day that said to use an ice cream scoop to make cupcakes because it’s the PERFECT size, but there’s only about a billion different sizes of the stupid things! So glad to know what the RIGHT size is! 🙂
Omg, that picture of Felina rolling her tongue is the best!! I’ve made this cake before and it is delish! Hahahaha, autocorrect tried to put delusional instead of delish. Anyway, yummy! Five stars!
Where did you get the 24-30 servings? I would maybe get 4.
Only ’cause it would have made 24 – 30 cupcakes. I didn’t get that many servings out of the cake, believe me!
This is definitely the kind of cake you want a “slab” of. 🙂
“Raccoons having a bake sale” is a perfect description of the chaos in my kitchen whenever I bake something.
Raccoons having a bake sale is a good way to describe my brain, too. 😉
HEY!!!! This is MY Chocolate Bundt Cake!!
Seriously, my mom made this for my birthday every year. Then I started making it for myself when I was grown. One year (18), I ate like…waaaayyyy too much of it all by myself and ended up with the worst headach ever….then I ate some more 🙂
Seriously this is the first time I’ve seen a recipe with the exact same ingredients. I never frosted it (nicely done Nance) nor did I ever make it as cupcakes.
I haven’t made this in years since my boys wont eat chocolate (what is WRONG with them?!) and I really don’t want to consume the whole thing anymore. However, I think this year, I should bake it when I do my Christmas cookies and bring it in to work.
Oh dear LORD, am I ever having a week. The kind of week where raccoons take over your kitchen and have endless bake sales. Bake sales that would fund trips to the moon for every stinking member of the Science Club(including the kid who’s only there because his mom makes him).
I.WANT.THAT.CAKE. I might even let the raccoons have a bite if they’d make one for me.
PS— Why does the spell checker insist that I am misspelling raccoons? If I take the “s” off, the spell checker shuts it’s trap and leaves me alone. Is the plural of raccoon not raccoons? Have I been getting this wrong my entire life?
You can also use ice cream cones to bake your cupcakes in… just fill them all up to the same level, and bake until they are done.. usually it’s the same time as regular cupcakes, but you can test them with a toothpick if you want. No messy paper, and you can eat the cone with the cake! They are easy to frost, too!
What? you can use ice cream cones to make cupcakes? Where has that piece of critical info been all my life.
I am definitely making this for Christmas Day dessert. 🙂
PS: WHY are you taking pictures of the beagle’s ass Nance?
I have a similar recipe like this but if you like German Chocolate Cake…you put chocolate chips in it and also a can of the Pecan Coconut frosting you normally put on top of German Chocolate cake right in the cake mix. Its pretty darn tasty that way and super moist and no need for frosting on the cake.
WHAT? This German chocolate cake thing sounds delicious!!
It certainly does!!!
Robyn, if you haven’t given up on cupcakes entirely, I have found THE TRICK that makes them come out the same size! You use an ice cream scoop, the kind where you squeeze the sides of the handle together and a little curved bar of metal sweeps through the inside of the scoop and pushes the ice cream out. Take a level scoopful of the cupcake mixture, hold it over the pan and then squeeze the handle to eject it into a hole/liner. Result: UNIFORMLY SIZED CUPCAKES. Except maybe the last one that’s made up by scraping the bowl.
I mean it still requires a little hand/eye co-ordination, but no more than you’d need to, say, pick up a kitten and stick a nursing bottle in its mouth. And you don’t get the nipple up their noses TOO often, right?