Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Frosting

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was busy busy busy.

This morning I bring you my latest culinary creation...chocolate cupcakes with peppermint frosting topped with crushed candy canes. The inspiration for this came from the boy, who loves chocolate and mint together.

Ingredients for cupcakes:
1 1/3 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup cocoa powder
dash of salt
3 tbsp softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
dash of vanilla extract
3/4 cup of milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together.

Add eggs, beat until smooth. Combine dry ingredients.

Add dry ingredients and milk to wet mixture, beat until smooth. Makes 18 cupcakes.

While you are waiting for the cupcakes to cook, you can make the frosting.

Ingredients for frosting:
1 lb of powdered sugar
1 stick of softened butter
dash of vanilla extract
2 dashes of peppermint extract
1/4 cup of milk

Directions:
Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth. Licking beaters is optional, but you know I licked mine!

Once the frosting is all set to go, transfer to a ziploc bag to get ready for frosting. Then comes the fun part...crushing the candy canes! I used 6 regular sized candy canes for this, but 5 would do. Put them in a ziploc bag, take a meat mallet (or any similar object) and smash away!

Let the cupcakes cool completely. Unfortunately, I did not realize before I made this recipe that it actually makes 18 cupcakes, so I forced all the batter into 12 cupcakes and ended up having to cut them down, but lesson learned. Cut a hole in the center of each cupcake. Yours will look prettier than mine since you won't have to cut off the edges. Make sure you don't cut all the way through to the bottom, otherwise you will have frosting leaking out the bottom.

Frost and top with the crushed candy cane.

What are your favorite flavor combos?