AMy best friend was asked to bring a dessert for her office holiday party. Naturally she asked me to make cupcakes for it as her to Co workers are obsessed with my cupcakes. Ias told to do mini wedding cake flavored(lots of almond extract) and mint chocolate. I do cupcakes as a hobby and load my "projects" off to her job to try, so I don't have much experience. I've never made a chocolate cupcake I've like before. I was thinking doctoribg up chocolate boxed mix? Will it be obvious bc I've only sent them from scratch ones before. Or do any of you have a moist reliable recipe you're willing to share? I am not a fan if the ones that use oil, hot water, and coffee. I was thinking of doing a chocolate cake filled with dark chocolate mint ganache and topped with either andes or mint Oreo frosting. What do you suggest? Thanks.

AExcuse my typos please. My phone would not let me correct them.

If they are mini cupcakes filling them might take away from the little cake that there is. I'd suggest a mint flavoring, or mint frosting. That'll be strong enough mint for the taste. I like boxed mix and it is easy to doctor with flavoring. I also know that Andes mints make little mini baking chips you could add to the batter (they're delicious). Just a few ideas. Good luck :)

AThank you both sooooo much! You're right a filling would take away from the cake. So I'm going to do chocolate cake with a green mint cream cheese frosting. I got lorann peppermint oil. Still undecided about using oreos, Andes, or the gihardhelli. I like the texture the oreos would add to the frosting but we'll see. Thanks again!

AThe Hershey's chocolate cake recipe which has oil, coffee and water is what most cakers use as their go to recipe...it produces a moist and sturdy cake. Or you can also look up the chocolate cake recipe on Epicurious...on my phone so can't post link..sorry! But search on google and you can find it :)

AThank you! But would I have to buy the Hersey cocoa bc I already have a ton of Ghirardelli natural unsweetened cocoa. I want to use what I have if possible. I also sa cupcake recipe from Cooks Illustrated that everyone swears buy too. It is so chocolatey it looks black and it uses bread flour.

ASaw* and by*

AI think I may try the black magic chocolate cake recipe. I hear it's the same as Hersheys but requires buttermilk. I will have cake mix as back up in case it fails.

AYes...yu can use any good cocoa, doesn't need to be Hershey's :) And yeah, a lot of people use buttermilk instead of milk and coffee instead of water in the Hershey's recipe.

AThank you! I am making them in the morning and will let you know how it goes. I just took the cream out of all the mint oreos and I'm going to put it in the frosting. Then I'm going to dip the frosted cupcakes in the crushed chocolate cookies :).

AThey came out stuck to the liners and super crumbly. I followed the directions to the letter. I'm ending up having to do all wedding cake since I didn't buy chocolate boxed mix as back up :-(.

AWeird... There's no way that the Hershey's recipe can be crumbly. It has a lot of moisture in it...not sure what could go wrong :-/

AWas the batter thin when you finished making it?

AIt was very thin! However, after sitting for a couple hours they were perfect. Had I known that, I wouldn't have thrown away half of them LOL. I was able to give her some and they loved it. I think it was the grease proof mini liners bc the wedding cake came out sticky and crumbly too just not nearly as bad as the chocolate. I make wedding cake all.the time and that never happened so I figure it's the liners. In fact both flavors did not stick after I baked them in regular liners.

AThat was my first time using grease proof mini liners. I'll never buy them again.

AWhat do you mean by "wedding cake"? Wedding cake isn't a specific cake flavor, it's just cake eaten at weddings, which can be anything from almond to red velvet - and all points in between.

It's pretty silly, don't you think, to give up on greaseproof liners after ONE go? There are so many variables involved which affects the final product (ESPECIALLY when baking from scratch), that it is almost impossible to determine exactly why you think the liners were crap. Maybe the recipe sucked, maybe that brand of liners are crap- or maybe they are awesome, but for some odd reason didn't work with that recipe. If I interpreted the previous posts correctly it seems like you jury-rigged a recipe without test baking several times in case there was troubleshooting that needed to be dealt with.

AUmm, yeah. I assume she's making white or vanilla. But with all the hype where people name all their flavors crazy names, birthday cake seems to be a flavor now. I assume its a mild vanilla, like Walmart birthday cakes.

AI live in New Orleans and here wedding cake is always white cake with tons of almond.

I have no need for greaseproof liners and bought them by accident. I don't buy liners with prints and prefer the see through look. I buy only white liners and occasionally brown. So I'd rather just stay away from them completely than go through what I did again. Even my trustworthy wedding cake that I've made in minis before messed up in those liners.

The chocolate was fine after it sat. In fact when I made the chocolate in the regular liners it was perfect...the best chocolate I ever made. I did not have a chance to get the ingredients for the chocolate until the night before I made it...was low on sugar, eggs, no buttermilk, etc. So I couldn't test it. I was going to get chocolate boxed mix if it failed but decided to trust the good reviews and ratings...which all proved to be correct :-).

AYes the Black Magic recipe is the Hershey recipe but with buttermilk. I agree it is amazing and will now be my go to chocolate. Even the chocolate haters loved it. Finally my chocolate problem has been solved!

ATry telling Louisiana residents wedding cake is not a flavor. It is a standard flavor in all cupcake and bakeries here...they label it as wedding cake too. It's almond and that's what folks expect here and for generations. Everyone thought Duff's wedding cake ice cream was a lie as they were like there's no almond?LOL

AIsn't white cake with tons of almond, almond cake?

AThat is our standard wedding cake flavor whether it is just called almond cake elsewhere. Every bakery in Louisiana labels their white cake with almond as uwedding cake...it's been like that for generations. We even have ice cream shops and snowball stands that sell wedding cake flavor and they label, spell it, and call it wedding cake(which is just almond flavor). I've never had to explain it so many times LOL. Normally when I say wedding cake people know its almond.

AIt's so cool how different areas have different foods, names, etc. unique to that area.

AI'm near Baton Rouge. We take "wedding cake" to mean white almond and "birthday cake" to mean vanilla. Lol.

A

Exactly and it's been that way since my mother's mother was around lol...minus the birthday cake as that seemed to have emerged everywhere the past few years. Folks were making it seem I was living in my own world LOL. Thank you.

AThat is so strange! Do people ever order something else for weddings? Like chocolate cake, or carrot or lemon?

A

Definitely but if they order white cake w/ almond it's called "wedding cake". It's definitely more popular than plain vanilla and always the #1 selling flavor in the bakeries and cupcake shops here for all occasions...right with red velvet. I've only been to 2 weddings where "wedding cake" was not the flavor cake. I think it was called that bc white almond was almost always the flavor cake chosen for weddings.

AAnd usually a filling is chosen with it like strawberry, raspberry, pineapple.

AWhen I went to order my college graduation cake, I told the lady I wanted wedding cake(almond). She said she makes nothing with almond. My family and I almost fainted. People at my party were shocked. First and only bakery that I've had this happen.

I only went with her bc her work was the best in the area...and her from scratch vanilla was the best in the area...which I chose with half strawberry and half Bavarian cream. Would've bought an "almond" cake if I was living in New Orleans still then.