This weekend is a colleague's birthday, so I decided to bake something special to treat everyone. I didn't do anything special or fancy to this recipe; just decided to follow it directly and the cupcakes came out beautifully. I frosted it with a regular cream cheese frosting which I flavored with raspberry extract.

The dark chocolate cake came out very fluffy and moist. The chocolate taste is not so bitter that you would cringe; in fact, the slight bitterness is a nice contrast to the sweet cream cheese frosting.

I am definitely getting better at frosting, eh?

The biggest problem is that I baked 30 cupcakes and it's gonna be a real burden to get to work tomorrow! Let's hope that it really doesn't rain early in the morning...

Dark Chocolate Cake (adapted to cupcakes, makes about 30)

2 cups boiling water
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 1/4 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease three 9" round cake pans. I lined muffin tins with cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture. Spread batter evenly between the 3 prepared pans. I filled the cupcake liners up to half-way full.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes. I baked the cupcakes for about 20 minutes, until they puffed up all nice and cute! Allow to cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting

I used a basic cream cheese frosting (which just means that I eyeballed everything...)

I mixed the following together until they were the right consistency:

• cream cheese
• confectioner's sugar
• butter
• heavy cream
• red food coloring

This week's SMS recipe is extra special because it was picked by Melissa herself. You can see her post and the recipe at the SMS blog here.

I have to say, I've been quite busy lately, thanks to the start of summer classes. In fact, I have a midterm tomorrow and yet I procrastinated by baking today *hangs head in shame*. What can I say... I am just the queen of last minute cramming.

I have to say though, that this recipe couldn't have come on a better week (perhaps finals week, but that's besides the point). I whipped up the cookie batter in less than 30 minutes and baking was a breeze. I was too lazy to use my real oven (because when it's not doing it's real job baking, it's acting as storage for my pots and pans, which I have to drag out each time I'm baking) so I used the small toaster oven. Which is also why my cookies are not round but square since they spread in all kinds of directions. But it gives them character and a homemade quality, don't you think? :)

I also did not use toasted almonds as suggested, but added white chocolate, which gave it some sweetness since I used unsweetened chocolate instead of semisweet chocolate. Using unsweetened chocolate gave the cookies a heavenly smell of chocolate without the super sweetness of chocolate chips.