Ingredients for one dozen cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cups cake flour (whole grain flour is also good)
• 1 cup sugar (it can be brown sugar if you’re too health-conscious to eat refined sugar)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (liquid)
• 1 teaspoon apple vinegar
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 5 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup water

Method:

Put all solid ingredients in a bowl, make three holes in the mixture and pour in them the vanilla, the vinegar and the melted butter (drop each ingredient into a hole). Add a cup of water on top, then mix everything very well.

Pour the chocolate cake batter into a lined cupcake pan, put it in the pre-heated oven and bake it for 20 minutes at 350 F. You can try the cupcakes with a toothpick after 15 minutes, to see if they are done. Stick one of the cupcakes in the middle. If the toothpick comes out clean, you’re ready. If not, let them bake five minutes more. Take the pan out of the oven and let the cupcakes chill before frosting them.

Depending on the occasion, you can use this chocolate cupcake recipe to bake birthday cupcakes, Easter cupcakes, Thanksgiving or Halloween cupcakes. Just buy the appropriate decorations and let your imagination run.

Cupcake ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vinegar
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Baking the cupcakes:

Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Make a hole in the mixture and add the wet ingredients: the teaspoon vanilla, the teaspoon vinegar and the melted butter. Now pour in 1 cup water over it all. Mix well.

Spoon the cupcake batter into a lined cupcake tin, making sure to fill the cups only by two thirds.  Bake the cupcakes in the oven at 350 F. They should be done in about 30 minutes, but it would be good if you checked them after 20-25 minutes. Try one with a toothpick – if it comes out clean, then cupcakes are done, you can take them out. There’s no need to buy special Easter liners for these cupcakes, because you’re going to give them the bunny-face frosting, so the cupcake lining won’t be that visible. Just simple, plain liners would be very good.

This bakes 12 cupcakes. The frosting ingredients that follow are also calculated for 12 cupcakes.

Bunny face frosting ingredients:

• White icing
• Shredded coconut
• Pink decorating sugar
• Pink jelly candies
• Blue or green small, round candies
• 24 big marshmallows
• 48 small marshmallows
• One tablet of plain milk chocolate, melted

Method:

Apply the frosting evenly over the cupcake top, then dunk the cupcake into the shredded coconut bowl, for making the fluffy bunny face. For making the bunny ears, use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the marshmallows, then shape the pieces with your fingers until they get a rabbit ear shape. You’ll see that the surface resulted from the cut is all sticky. Dunk it into the pink decorating sugar: you’ve just made the nice, pink interior of the bunny ears. Apply the ears on the cupcake, as shown in the video below. A pink jelly bean will make the cute bunny nose. Two blue or green dot candies will make the eyes. Two smaller marshmallows will make the bunny cheeks. The lady in the video then uses black decorating gel to make the eye pupils and pink decorating gel for the bunny whiskers. I like doing those with melted chocolate. I just use a cake decorating syringe, fill it with melted chocolate then make the pupils and the rabbit whiskers. Maybe I’m a little bit conservative, but I tend to avoid using food colorants, decorating gels and other such stuff, because I fear they might be harmful.

Here’s the Easter cupcakes video:

What Are Cupcakes and Why Are They Popular?

But what is a cupcake and what makes it so special? If were to look at a classical definition, a cupcake is a small cake baked in a muffin tin or in an individual pottery cup, ramekin or baking cup, yielding one serving, which can be eaten using solely the hands. Most cupcake recipes call for frosting, sprinkles or other decorations, but there are also versions of plain cupcakes. In the UK and Ireland, cupcakes are known as fairy cakes. Cupcakes can be served at tea time, at parties or any time you crave for something sweet.
Like muffins, cupcakes have been around for decades. It’s not clear whether muffins are cupcakes without frosting or cupcakes are sweet muffins with a frosting decoration, but they managed to stay popular because of a few simple facts:

1. Cupcakes are fun: you don’t have to be a child to love those cute little sweets with colorful icing and mouth watering sprinkles on top. If adults like them, it’s easy to imagine that children love them. Ask a child to help you bake some fancy cupcakes and you’ve got her in the kitchen for life.
2. No tools are needed to eat a cupcake. This makes them the ideal dessert for parties, as you eliminate dishwashing or buying disposable plates and spoons which look and feel so cheap. Cupcakes are baked in special paper liners, so your guests won’t even get their hands dirty when enjoying their dessert. Lately, there is a growing trend of serving cupcakes at weddings, instead of a wedding cake. In this case, the cupcakes would be arranged on a stand in order to form a cupcake tower, resembling the traditional wedding cake.
3. Small portions help controlling the intake of calories and of various nutrients, especially if you bake the cupcakes at home, so you can control what ingredients go inside them. You may say there’s no difference between eating ten cupcakes and eating ten pieces cut from a big cake. Indeed, there’s no difference, but psychologically, you’d stop when seeing those cupcake liners piling in front of you. Well, at least some of us would stop.

Got Cupcake Recipes?

Send us your best cupcake recipe with a photo and we are going to publish it in our special Guest Cupcake Bakers section, giving you full credit for it. It’s another chance for you to prove your skills and to meet like-minded, cupcake loving people. All of you are welcome to give your feedback and to rate cupcake recipes submitted by other readers. Based on the number of votes, we are going to award The Best Cupcake Recipe of the Month, which will come with a prize (which for now is a surprise).