Because of Martha (BOM): Cupcake Challenge 1/175

A recent purchase at Barnes & Noble has prompted me to challenge myself in the way that only a nerd like me would. When I noticed that the Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook has 175 recipes, I thought that I may as well make each recipe. Don't start thinking Julie & Julia. I just thought that this challenge would help me improve at baking with extra sweet results. 

To begin, I thought it made sense to start with the very first recipe, which happens to be Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. It gathered my ingredients taking extra special care to follow the directions that were outlined (and even more, the amounts of ingredients). Other than a quick run to get unsalted butter because of my terrible math skills, I was ready to go. 

I began by mixing together my ingredients for the cupcakes. The recipe yields thirty cupcakes (exactly for me) and they were really beautiful on their pans both before and after baking. They took about twenty minutes a tin. 

While I waited for the cupcakes to bake, I worked on the frosting. It was a dark chocolate frosting that tasted really delicious alone (trust me!).

After cooling, I decorated the cupcakes and served them up for my sisters. They are quite sweet, which I was not expecting. Although I love chocolate frosting, I think that perhaps it was too much chocolate to go with the chocolate chip cupcakes. One snag I ran into with the frosting is that it has flecks of chocolate in it instead of being perfectly smooth. I think this was due to me cooling my melted chocolate too much. However, they are great cupcakes and they taste nice plain if you don't like frosting! Look forward to my next installment of my BOM: Cupcake Challenge coming later this month.

Recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes. You can purchase online or in any book store.