When I was a child, everything had to be chocolate from the ice cream in my hot fudge sundae or ice cream float to my birthday cake and icing. I have no idea if Hutzler’s used the same recipe for their Halloween cupcakes as they did for my birthday cake, but I’m betting they did. If you want to make cupcakes, grease or line cupcake tins with paper cupcake cups, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted near the middle of a cupcake comes clean. This is a recipe first made for me by a friend, adapted from Rosso & Lukins’ “New Basics Cookbook.”
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups dark brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons vanilla
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Place chocolate in a small, heavy saucepan and melt over low heat, stirring constantly. Remove pan from heat, and set aside.
Cream butter and brown sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer. With the mixer on low speed, add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the melted chocolate.
Combine the cake flour, baking soda and the salt. Alternating between the two, add the flour mixture and the buttermilk to the chocolate mixture in three stages, ending with the flour. Then slowly stir in the boiling water and vanilla.
Pour the batter into the two prepared pans, and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a layer comes out clean, around 30 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and let the layer sit for 5 minutes. Then invert the pans over wire racks, releasing the cake, and let the cake cool completely.
Chocolate Icing
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup milk (or half and half)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
Combine chocolate and butter in a small heavy saucepan and melt over very low heat. Remove the pan fro the heat, stir in the milk and vanilla, and transfer mixture to a mixing bowl. Add the sugar gradually, beating with an electric mixer. Continue beating until the mixture is smooth; it will be runny. Refrigerate the mixture for 1 hour, beating it every fifteen minutes (the mixture will stiffen).
Using a spatula, cover the top of one cake layer with chocolate icing. Place the second layer on top of the first and ice the top and sides of cake.
