UPDATE: I realized that the original recipe I had written on LLL was wrong. I did not have one key ingredient written down, which is canola oil. You can see now that it is in the recipe, but I apologize to anyone who might have tried to make these cupcakes and they didn’t turn out. I’m very sorry!

——————————————————–

Yesterday I babysat for some of my former neighbors. They have two kids, and one of them, the little girl, is turning 7 in just over a week. I love these kids, and it’s a ton of fun to spoil them, so….I baked some cupcakes in celebration of the upcoming birthday.

And, bonus, these cupcakes are not only egg free, but dairy free, too! 🙂

Frosting Filled Chocolate Cupcakes (E, N, D)
makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup water
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. white vinegar

About 1 tub vanilla frosting (if you are going dairy free, make sure you get the right kind of frosting!)
Assorted food coloring (I used pink and purple)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Line a cupcake tin with paper, or spray thoroughly with cooking spray to prevent sticking.
2. Combine dry ingredients (flour through baking soda) in a bowl.
   
3. Add water, oil, vanilla extract, and vinegar.
4. Stir until just combined. Over-stirring could lead to dry or tough cupcakes.
5. Put about 1/4 cup of batter into each cupcake tin, making it so each tin is about 3/4 full.
   
6. Bake for 15-17 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle of cupcake comes out clean.
   
7. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
8. Once cupcakes have fully cooled, take a wooden spoon (or something similar), and punch a hole in the middle of each cupcake. Do not go through to the bottom of the cake. To make more room for filling, you can poke around and smush the inside of the cake around a bit.
      
9. Combine 2-3 tablespoons of frosting with one or two drops of food coloring. Put colored frosting into a small plastic bag, and snip a bit off one of the corners. Use this to fill the cupcakes. (You could also just use a pastry/piping bag!)
10. Once done filling, frost each cupcake with whatever color frosting you’d like!
    
11. Enjoy!

Notes:
– The secret ingredient in these cupcakes is the vinegar. It reacts with the baking soda in the batter, so don’t worry if the batter starts bubbling! In fact, this is what helps the cupcakes rise so nicely in the oven.
– You really want to make sure to completely cool the cupcakes – frosting warm cupcakes will just lead to melted frosting.
– Store these cupcakes in an air-tight container. I actually found them to be much better the second day – they had time to soak up a bit of the frosting, and were therefore much more moist. Yum!

Nutrition (not including frosting):

The verdict: the kids loved the cupcakes! The boy said, and I quote, “These cupcakes are amazing. Oh my gosh. You make the best sweets ever. Like cupcakes, and cookies, and stuff. I bet if you made brownies they’d be even better than my grandpa’s, and he has a secret recipe!” His sister, the birthday girl, was equally pleased, but seemed to be in more of a food coma while eating than her brother.

I guess I’ll just have to take him up on that bet…. 😉