homemade from scratch yellow cake cupcakes with the perfect fudgy chocolate frosting

so last night, i got to baking. i love baking. i just love being in the kitchen. there is a quote in the movie julie & julia that i can totally relate to- "You know what I love about cooking? I love that after a day when nothing is sure and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. You can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. That's such a comfort." i compeletly agree :) not that yesterday was a bad day, it was totally normal, but i love how consistent (ok, at least most of the time) baking is.

last night, i made yellow cupcakes with fudgy chocolate frosting and they were a delight. i was making them for a saturday fun day we are headed to this weekend, and i thought i just had to share them with you. the recipe i use is from here and i think it is hands down the best yello cake recipe ever. even better than the box!

ingredients...ready to go!

first, i mixed the sugar & the room temperature butter, whipping it to a fluffy perfection in my kitchenaid mixer.



next, in a separate bowl (my handy dandy le creuset batter bowl of course), i combined my cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. i alway use Swans Down Regular Cake Flour



then, i started adding the eggs one by one to the sugarybuttery goodness. once the four eggs were added, i dropped in a good splash of vanilla

and finally 2 cups of well shaken buttermilk. gross, i know, but i swear it makes a huge difference.

the recipe says to mix the buttermilk in just enough so it looks "curdled." she wasn't kidding! it looks just like that:

and finally, i added in the flour mix

and i ended up with this smooth, yummy, perfect, yellow cake batter.

i'm not going to lie, nathan & i could have eaten the whole bowl right there. but, we didnt. instead, i carefully scopped it out into cupcakes. i have found that using a cookie scoop helps me create consistent cupcakes that have just the right amount of batter (plus, i feel like a "real" baker when i do it)





i bought the wrong paper liners- these shrivled up in a no-fun kind of way



i popped these in the oven and got to work on my icing (side note here, i made her recipe and while it says it yields 22-24 cupcakes, mine made exactly 32. also, i baked mine in our crazy oven for about 13 mintues). while i didn't document my icing escapade (not much to photograph about powdered sugar), i used her fudgey recipe found here) once it was whipped up, i put it in a homemade piping bag to squeeze on top of my cake. while i have wilton bags, for this amount of icing, and since i was just doing a swirl on top of the cupcake, i used a gallon size zip-loc bag with a wilton tip on the end.



yummy chocolate frosting!



one thing i have found about this icing, i think i like it a whole lot more when it has set for a little while. the color is better, and the chocolate seems to blend in and have a better look & texture.

my icing was ready just in time for me to grab these guys out of the oven and move them to my cooling rack. how delish do they look?!

ah, perfectly golden brown and not burned on the bottom at all!! i was very pleased. since i was taking them to an event on saturday, i needed a way to transport them so that they wouldn't slide and so they would stay pretty. i had seen this idea on pinterest to put them in punch cups, and it sounded like a great idea so i gave it a try. i thought this would be a great way to transport & show off the cuteness of these little guys

worked like a charm!

beautiful. threw on a few nonperil sprinkles and called it a day. i think these will be a hit!

i had several left over (i only needed 13) so i sent a dozen to work with nathan and then we shared the rest with some of our friends (ty & molly) who cam over for dinner. they were pretty stinkin' awesome, if i do say so myself.

be sure to check out the recipe site, and i definitely recommend using this one!! every time i have made them they have turned out just perfect. 

if you make them, let me know how they turn out. enjoy!