Milk Chocolate Cupcakes with Fresh Mint Frosting.
You know things are really getting bad if I make frosting with… technically… a vegetable in it. Don’t even try to fight me on this. Mint is green, and it grows in dirt. It is a freaking vegetable.
Hmmpf. Now that we got that out of the away.
I had really high hopes for this weirdo frosting. I love chocolate and mint together – I can easy down a bag of bite-sized peppermint patties – and I knew I could make a mint chocolate cupcake with some crazy extracts I’ve seen at the store. I’m just soooo incredibly fond of fresh mint that I was dying to make it into something sweet. And I was also playing single lady, which really just means that I eat a. wine, b. ice cream, c. peanut butter out of the jar, d. hummus and e. all of the above for dinner while my husband travels. Time was on my side.
Except fresh mint sort of tastes like toothpaste. And dirt. Really, really good dirt.
Don’t even look at me like that. You know it does! Sure, it’s delicious in things like boozy salsa and watermelon salads and tall icy drinks, but… it also tastes like toothpaste. I cannot tell a lie. And yes, I will eat it by itself (which I guess means I will eat raw vegetables but whatever) and while I find it chewy and crazy, I also sort of love it. Like, a lot.
So I present to you chocolate toothpaste and dirt cupcakes. Preferably served after an extra garlicky dish of shrimp scampi swimming in butter. Kiss away! Can I make a date night meal or what?
Really, the milk chocolate cupcakes were the bees knees. Those were fab. So was the milk chocolate frosting which I may gladly finish off for dinner tonight, albeit this time I may go a bit buck wild and dip some pretzel sticks in it. I actually really enjoyed the fresh mint frosting, but in a super small amount, like plopped on top of that sprinkle-covered icing blob. Which I know you’re thinking probably means I should now slather it on every single dessert I make for the rest of my life in order to exhibit portion control, but STOP YELLING AT ME. Man, you are really on my case today.
If you were here, I’d totally wish that you’d faceplant into this.
Milk Chocolate Cupcakes
makes 12 cupcakes
1 1/8 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoon vanillas extract
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 ounces of high-quality milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a bowl, whisk egg and sugar until smooth and no lumps remain. Add milk, butter and vanilla, and mix until combined. Sift dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture. Mix until batter is smooth. Fold in milk chocolate. Line a muffin tin with liners and using a heaping 1/4 cup measure, add batter to each cup. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.
Milk Chocolate Buttercream
2 sticks of butter (1 cup), softened to room temperature
3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
3 ounces milk chocolate, melted and cooled for about 5-10 minutes (still in liquid form)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons milk, if needed
Beat butter in the bowl of your electric mixer until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add in powdered sugar gradually (about 1/2 cup at a time) with the mixer on low speed, slowly increasing the speed and it combines. Add in milk chocolate and vanilla and continue to mix. I scrape down the sides and bottom of my bowl about 4-5 times, and mix for about 4-5 minutes on medium-high speed. Add in milk one tablespoons at a time if you need it or find that the frosting is not creamy enough.
Fresh Mint Buttercream
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped very fine
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons milk, if needed
Beat butter in the bowl of your electric mixer until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add in powdered sugar gradually (about 1/2 cup at a time) with the mixer on low speed, slowly increasing the speed and it combines. Add in fresh mint and vanilla and continue to mix. I scrape down the sides and bottom of my bowl about 4-5 times, and mix for about 4-5 minutes on medium-high speed. Add in milk one tablespoons at a time if you need it or find that the frosting is not creamy enough.
Note: this can easily be multiplied, and you can also add some green food coloring if you wish. I’m thinking a possibility may be to process the mint leaves with vanilla extract in a food processor to make a “liquid” of sorts, then add it to the frosting.
Oh P.S.: I love your guts.
185 Comments on “Milk Chocolate Cupcakes with Fresh Mint Frosting.”
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I absolutely loved reading your post!! :-D. I was giggling the whole way through, mostly because what you were saying is what most people think, but never say. I am definitely going to try your recipe. Sounds delish!!
Thank you for the smiles and the recipe.
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I made these today and probably won’t make them again… They are so sweet. I made half the icing called for because it seemed like an excessive amount, and I still had too much. Â If you like really sweet then you will probably enjoy it. The mint buttercream was quite tasty, but the chocolate was overwhelming. Â I think if I left out the chocolate buttercream and just made the mint I would have been happier, as the chocolate cake/mint icing combo is quite nice. Â
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Just made the fresh mint buttercream to top chocolate cupcakes (no additional chocolate frosting) . Maybe my mint leaves weren’t pungent enough so it tastes mildly like fresh mint. Delicious nevertheless and I will definitely make this unique treat again. (And this is nothing like a toothpaste flavor IMHO)
Hi, me again and it’s Day 2 of this fresh mint buttercream frosting. I had the notion that perhaps overnight the natural mint oil in the leaves would pervade the frosting but that has not been the case. The frosting now tastes vaguely like spinach rather than mint. Spinach flavored frosting is interesting but odd. No, I won’t make them again. It was a good experiment though.
This mint icing was an interesting idea, but it did not succeed for me. I used the recommended amount of mint leaves (1/4 cup chopped), but it didn’t seem like enough. Once I chopped them, they turned kind of blackish and dull looking. When I mixed them into the buttercream (which was already stained slightly yellowish from the large amount of vanilla extract), they looked like little greyish green bits… like pickles. Pickles in tartar sauce. My icing looked like tartar sauce.
It tasted better than it looked, but that’s not saying much. The mint flavor was almost unnoticeable; the mint mainly made itself noticed because it was chewy and lumpy. Hmm, I can see why mint extract was invented. I ended up “rescuing” this icing recipe by adding peppermint extract and a couple drops of green food coloring.
Glad I didn’t bother making the chocolate icing too. Just the mint icing was plenty of icing for a dozen cupcakes!