Baking with Kids: Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

One of the gifts we got for Christmas this year was a Babycakes Mini Cupcake maker. I just love it!  So far the kids and I have made Funfetti cupcakes, carrot cake cupcakes and this past weekend, we made these adorable mini chocolate cupcakes.

These chocolate cupcakes will be the perfect treat to bring to school for our Valentine's day party!

If you have been following along for a while, I am sure you know that I love to bake goodies with my little guys.  Of course when they cook with me, they want to lick and taste everything.  I remember, only a few years ago, the kids and I tried to made pasta. (very easy and fun, the recipe only calls for flour and eggs.)   As we were rolling out the dough, my son kept leaning over and licking the raw dough.  I finally had to send him out of the kitchen, as I was more worried about him consuming raw eggs that I was about him licking our food.  (I even have a YouTube video of him demonstrating how to make Raspberry Sorbet where he just can not keep from tasting and licking everything - including his arm...)

One of the things that makes me feel safe now and allows them to bake with me again, is a specialty egg product I stumbled across a few years ago at my local grocery store: a pasteurized in the shell egg called Davidson's Safest Choice® Pasteurized Eggs.  (I am not just being paranoid- children under 10 are particularly vulnerable to food-borne illness because their immune systems are not developed enough to fight off food-borne bacterial infections. That's why extra care should be taken when handling and preparing their food.)

(I have mentioned these eggs before in my Alphabet Cookie post and Strawberry Cake Mix Cookies posts.

I have recently teamed up with Safest Choice® Pasteurized Eggs, as one of the 12 Ambassadors for Safest Choice® Eggs (know as the Darling Dozen.)

These eggs look, cook and taste just like regular eggs, except they have been put through The Safest Choice® patented, all natural egg pasteurization process.  Their pasteurization process eliminates the risk of Salmonella in eggs before they even enter your kitchen.

Now you can bake with your kids again without having to worry about them getting sick from tainted raw eggs...

Back to the cupcakes...

I had temporarily misplaced the cookbook that came with the cupcake maker.  (Found it today behind my laptop screen.)  I really wanted to use a recipe from the book, because the recipes are sized down to make fewer cupcakes.  Instead, I use a delicious little recipe I found on the Hershey's website.  It made quite a bit of batter, but that's OK, I just froze the leftovers.  (Did you know you can freeze cake batter?  You can freeze it in freezer bags, in throw away baking tins or do what I did and spoon the batter into the mini muffin cup and freeze it that way.  Once the muffin cups are frozen, I just tossed them into a gallon sized freezer bag.)

 She loves running the mixer...

Busted...  she was making sure it tasted good .

My son was playing with his new Minecraft game and didn't want to help cook, but he certainly came running when it was time to lick the beaters...

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe:


Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

Instructions for the oven (regular cupcake size)

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line about 30 muffin cups (2-1/2 inch in diameter) with paper or foil baking cups.
2.  Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Fill cups 2/3 full with batter.
3.  Bake 22 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool completely in pans on wire rack

Instructions for Babycakes Mini Cupcake maker:

     1.  Preheat the cupcake maker and line with mini cupcake liners:

    

     2.  Fill the cupcake liners almost top of the liner.  They come out more round this way, I just used my

          pampered chef medium scoop.

     3.  Close lid and cook for 6 minutes.  

     4.  Remove cupcakes from cupcake maker and allow to cool.

     5  Top with your favorite frosting and sprinkles!

Enjoy!

Would you like to win something?:  The folks at Davidson's Safest Choice® have generously provided a Babycakes Mini Cupcake Maker and liners, coupons for a month supply of Safest Choice® Eggs (8 dozen), and a few promotional goodies from Safest Choice®.

To enter, just fill out the raffle-copter form below and I will draw and announce the winner on Sunday.  (If you are reading this post in your reader or email  you may have to click over to the blog post here to enter.)

Don't want to wait?  Go here to find out where the eggs are sold near you and print a coupon!

Giveaway open to us residents only.

To stay informed on new products, coupons, and other information, you can connect with Davidson's Safest Choice Pasteurized eggs on Twitter and Facebook.


If you like this type of recipe and want to see more, you can follow along using the Google Friend Connect widget, through a reader, or signing up via email.  Just click on one of the icons below:

         

I will be linking up to some of the linky parties listed here.

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( I am a brand ambassador for Davidson's Safest Choice® and a member of their Darling Dozen. This post is sponsored but all opinions are 100% my own.)