Dr. Pepper Cupcakes

Emily, one of my best friends, was celebrating another friend's birthday this week. Emily doesn't really cook or bake much, but she desperately wanted to prepare Dr. Pepper Cupcakes and Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo for her friend's birthday. I'm going to put this in two separate posts so that the cupcakes and the meal each have their own recipe, and since I'm waaaay more excited about the cupcakes, I'm going to show you them first.

Oh my gosh. How awesome do these look?!?! We put a different design on almost every cupcake. And honestly, they were all done with a ziploc baggie with an end snipped off. Some of them, we tried using the plastic tips you can get at the grocery store on the baking isle. They were fun to experiment with, and they were super cheap. They were difficult to use, though, because there is no way to hold them in place. I'm asking for professional ones from my hubby for my bday (in less than a month.)

Okay, here's what you need:

Get two sticks of butter and 1 C Dr. Pepper (not diet!).

Melt them in a bowl.

Make sure you put the DP in the microwave when you put the butter in there. For this to work, the DP has to be flat. (Alternatively you could leave the cap off the bottle for a few hours.)

Throw them in your stand mixer with cocoa, cinnamon, flour, and sugar.

 

Mix them all together on medium speed.

Mix eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, and vanilla to the rest of the mixture.

Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes, and you get this delicious, chocolatey goodness:

No one will judge you if you stick your finger in the bowl and have a lick. Emily and I both did... It was delicious, by the way.

Ladle your mixture into lined cupcake tins. You should be filling each cup 2/3 of the way full. You should have enough batter for 24 cupcakes.

Bake them in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

When they are done, and you are waiting for them to cool, you should prepare your frosting. I kinda forgot to take pictures of this process. I used the frosting from the back of the Hershey's cocoa container and added about 1 1/2 t of cinnamon to it. You can honestly do this with any chocolate frosting recipe. Just pick your favorite!

Fair warning: Don't be like Emily and taste the frosting before the powdered sugar goes in, it's veeery bitter. 

This, however, is delicious!!!

If you don't want to be fancy, you could easily put this on the cupcake with a knife.

If you want to be cool like Emily and me, this is the time to get out your ziplocs or your piping bags.

This is our favorite cupcake:

Emily called it the hipster cupcake. I thought it was a good description.

So many beautiful, delicious cupcakes! Mmmmm....

Here's the recipe all in one spot, for your convenience:

Dr. Pepper Cupcakes

 1 cup butter
 1 cup Dr. Pepper
 2 eggs
 1/2 cup buttermilk
 1 tsp. baking soda
 1 tsp. (possibly more) vanilla
 8 tbsp. cocoa
 3 tsp. cinnamon
 2 cups flour
 2 cups sugar

1.       Heat butter and Dr. Pepper.

2.        Add cocoa, cinnamon, flour, and sugar to the butter mixture.

3.        Mix eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, and vanilla to the rest of the mixture. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes.

4.       Pour into 2 8 or 9 inch pans (or 24 cupcakes).

Bake cake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (only 20 minutes for cupcakes).