Precious Little Cupcake

Cupcakes are essentially perfect. They have all the goodness of cake, in a convenient single-serving size. At the same time, they're small enough that you can make an excuse to have two without feeling guilty- which is our favorite part because we love cupcakes. Today's recipe was made for a meeting, and they were a big hit. These are cupcakes from the original vegan winners of Cupcake Wars on Food Network. They have a chocolate base with special hints of cinnamon and coffee, and a vanilla frosting topped with candied pecans. The original recipe was made with bourbon, but see below for our substitutions. Enjoy!

The set-up.

The little monsters.

The left-over batter in cake form.

AK tested. AK approved.

As always, some tips to optimize the recipe:

• You can always sub bourbon for vanilla in baking- they taste very similar in the finished product. 
• This time, we put the frosting in the fridge for an hour or two before frosting, and it worked perfectly.
• Cooling the cakes overnight provides less chance for residual heat to melt the frosting.
• If you don't have a piping bag, use a Ziploc and cut open one end to make your own.
• There's a caramel sauce that's supposed to fill these, but ours hardened up too much. Be very careful when making the filling.

These were divine. 10/10 would recommend.