Recipe: Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

Ivy loves making these mini cupcakes her mom, her mom loves the healthy secret ingredient, we love her mom’s trick of topping them with softened cream cheese instead of frosting, and I’m sure you will love reading all about it. It’s a total win-win situation for everyone. (As it always should be when cupcakes are involved. Nom, nom, nom!)

I love this recipe we found on epicurious.com because it’s specially formulated for mini cupcakes. My mom loves it because the rich, yummy flavor comes from dates. I’m not sure why that’s such a big deal, but I’m glad the cupcakes make her happy, too.

Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients

1/3 c water
1/3 c pitted dates, coarsely chopped
1/4 c unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 ounce fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), coarsely chopped
3 tbs packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tbs all-purpose flour
Vegetable oil or cooking spray
Mini muffin pan with 12 (1/8 c) muffin cups

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325
Bring water and dates just to a boil in a 1-qt heavy saucepan, then transfer mixture to a food processor and add cocoa powder and chocolate, pulsing once to combine.
Let cool 2 minutes, then add brown sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, and a pinch of salt and puree until smooth.
Add flour and pulse until just incorporated.
Spray muffin cups with cooking spray. (Or, you can use pretty cupcake liners, which I like to do.)
Spoon batter into cups, dividing it evenly.
Bake your cupcakes in the middle of the oven until a wooden pick comes out clean, 18 to 22 minutes.
Cool cupcakes in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then turn out onto rack and cool completely, right side up.

Quick notes

I just used cream cheese for frosting, but regular frosting would work, too. If you’re really going all out, it would be fun to color small batches of your frosting different colors.

Cooking time: 18 minute(s)