Dark Knight Chocolate Cupcakes (AKA Batman Cupcakes)

This past Easter weeked my Mother's Church hosted their annual Wildly Unique Dessert Auction (WUDA). WUDA helps to raise money to send childrean from both the church and the community, who would normally not be able to afford the cost, to summer camp for a week. Every year WUDA has a theme, this years theme was Super Hero. I spent weeks trying to chose a super hero cupcake to make, in the end I went with Batman, because, well, Batman is awesome! So I made Dark Knight Chocolate cupcakes.

The chocolate cupcake recipe I used makes a nice light very flavorful cupcake.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes (justJENN)

1/2 cup melted chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1-1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon Valrhona cocoa powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep cupcake pans with liners.

1. In a medium bowl whisk together the salt, baking powder, flour and cocoa powder. Set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the melted chocolate, butter and sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla.

3. Alternate the flour mixture and the buttermilk until combined.

4. In a small bowl mix together the baking soda and the vinegar, pour into the batter and mix until thoroughly incorporated. This will give the cake a nice soft crumb.

5. Fill your liners halfway to 2/3 full and bake for 15-17 minutes depending on your oven.

6. Let cool on a wire rack.

These cupcakes will not have the nice arch that most do. However for the purpose of these cupcakes a flatter surface works much better.

Decorating batman cupcakes

Cream cheese frosting by Paula Deen

I absolutely love Paula Deen's cream cheese frosting. Personally I think her's is the best recipe for cream cheese frosting, I have yet to get any complaints.

Separate some of the frosting into two bowls. Using coloring gel color one yellow and the other black.

Using a icing spatula spread the yellow frosting onto the cupcakes.

Next use a toothpick to trace the lines of the batman symbol into the cupcakes.

Using a 1, 2, or 3 icing tip trace the lines with the black frosting and fill in the symbol.

I was very pleased with how mine turned out. I'm not very good at drawing so I was happy with these. I also won the award for best themed dessert at the auction!