Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

I am absolutely loving my new cupcake cookbook and now that I have baked two of the recipes, I am excited to figure out which recipe I am going to bake next. Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans is full of many yummy ideas for classic, filled, and celebration cupcakes. I decided to be a little daring and bake a classic cupcake for a celebration. I felt like I was breaking the rules of the cookbook, but its fun to live on the edge every once in awhile. These cupcakes were baked especially for J.M.'s bday (pics for birthday blog will be posted soon). Today's recipe is Chocolate chip cupcakes which makes 18 regular sized cupcakes. The recipe I am blogging is just for the cupcake part because the topping is the same one that I used from the marble fudge cupcakes (chocolate fudge glaze).

Ingredients:

- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

- 2 cups packed light brown sugar

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/2 cup (1 stick)

- 1 large egg

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 1 cup sour cream

- 1/4 cup whole milk

- 2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

Ingredients in a nutshell.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line 18 muffin tin cups with paper cupcake liners.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on low speed, mix the flour, brown sugar, and baking soda to blend them.

Add the butter and mix until the butter pieces are the size of peas, about 2 minutes.

Mix in the egg and vanilla. The batter will still look dry.

Mix in the sour cream and milk until the batter looks evenly moistened; you may still see some lumps of butter.

A picture of the evenly moistened batter.

Mix in the chocolate chips.... yum!

Fill each paper liner with about a generous 1/4 cup of batter, to about 1/3 inch from the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool the cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pans on wire racks.

Carefully place a wire rack on top of one pan of cupcakes. Protecting your hands with pot holders and holding the pan and rack together, invert them to release the cupcakes onto the wire rack. Turn the cupcakes top side up to cool completely.

Add the chocolate glaze. The directions said to use a fork to generously drizzle thin lines of the glaze on each cupcake. Who actually drizzles chocolate? Come on now... we are talking about a yummy chocolate glaze that deserves to be generously spooned to cover the top of the cupcake. After using which ever technique you prefer, let the cupcakes sit at room temperature until the glaze is firm. Serve at room temperature. The cupcakes can be covered and stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Now all that is left to do is to unwrap your creation and enjoy.

Bon Appetit!