What’s not to love about a little cup of chocolate cake for a birthday? I made these for a good friend’s birthday a few months ago.

Ingredients

for the cupcake:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 tbsp Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup hot water

for the frosting:

• 1 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
• 3 tbsp Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa powder
• 5 cups powdered sugar
• 4-5 tbsp heavy whipping cream
• pinch of salt

Preparation

Preheat oven to 300 degrees and prepare cupcake pan with liners. In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients; set aside. In a medium size bowl, combine the egg, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Add the hot water to the batter and mix until well combined. Batter will be thin.

Fill the cupcake liners about half way and bake for 18-23 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the middle comes clean, or with few crumbs. Remove cupcakes from oven and allow to cool for 2 minutes, then remove to a rack to finish cooling completely.

To make the frosting, beat butter in a large mixing bowl and mix until smooth. Add the melted chocolate (after it has cooled slightly) and mix until well combined. Add the cocoa powder and mix until well combined. Add half of the powdered sugar and 2 tbsp of heavy cream and mix until well combined. Add remaining powdered sugar and pinch of salt and mix until smooth; add remaining heavy cream, as needed, for desired frosting consistency.

Note: I usually have a lot of frosting left over.

Source: http://www.lifeloveandsugar.com