I made these for Easter and they were a big hit! My husband doesn’t really like icing but he likes this fudge-like frosting. My sister-in-law gave me this recipe from The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn and it’s pretty wonderful 🙂

I’ve made these a couple of times and it seems to work best if you make the frosting first so that it can cool while you make the cupcakes.

PERFECT CHOCOLATE FROSTING

Makes 3 ½ cups, enough to frost a 2 or 3 layer cake or 24 cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips
• ½ cup of half-and-half
• 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, cut into tablespoons
• 2 ½ cup of confectioners’ sugar, sifted

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place the chocolate chips, half-and-half, and butter in a medium-size saucepan over medium heat. Stir the mixture constantly until the chips and butter melt and the mixture thickens, 5 to 6 minutes. Do not let it boil. Remove the pan from the heat.
2. Whisk the confectioners’ sugar into the mixture until it becomes smooth. Then, place the saucepan in the refrigerator until cooled down.
3. Beat the mixture with an electric mixer set on low speed until the frosting thickens and is satiny and fudge like in appearance.
4. Spread onto the cake or cupcake of your choice. The frosting will stiffen up as it sets. If it gets too hard to spread, simply place the saucepan back over low heat and stir until reaches spreading consistency.

THE PERFECT CHOCOLATE CAKE

Cake serves 16 or makes 24 cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS:

• Solid vegetable shortening for greasing the pans for a cake
• Flour for dusting the pans
• 24 cupcake liners if making cupcakes
• 1 package (18.25 ounces) devil’s food cake mix with pudding
• 1 cup of sour cream
• ¾ cup of water
• ½ cup of vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease three 9-ince round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pans aside. (If you’re making cupcakes, place 24 cupcake liners in cupcake pans.)
2. Place the cake mix, sour cream, water, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed. The batter should look well combined.
3. Divide the batter among the prepared pans (or cupcake liners), smoothing it out with the rubber spatula, and place them in the oven.
4. Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger, 20 to 25 minutes.
5. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 10 minutes. Run a sharp knife around cake pans (take cupcakes out of pan) and place on wire racks to cool completely, 30 minutes.
6. Assemble and ice the cake (or cupcakes) with the Perfect Chocolate Frosting.

For Easter I bought little Whopper eggs to make the cupcakes look like a nest!

Enjoy!