My evil twin is one hell of a baker. Laura once made this biscotti that she brought to my house, and I didn’t speak to my then-boyfriend for nearly a week because he ate the last piece. It was that good. Her first contribution to my blog are these totally bitchin’ monkey cupcakes she made for a child’s birthday party:

Here is her recipe:

I wanted to use a banana cake recipe but the mom who wanted them, said all chocolate. This recipe made 48 cupcakes! Holy Bananas.

3 cups flour
1 1/2 t. baking soda
3 sticks of butter, supposed to be softened at room temp., I of course put them in the microwave for 10 seconds
1 1/2 cup sugar
8 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted.
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
6 eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract (don’t be cheap, use the real shit)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line muffin tins with cupcake papers. Set aside.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the chocolate, mixing until well incorporated. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla (I of course did both all at once and my batter was super thick, but they baked to perfect tops!). Do NOT overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

I made them Friday night and iced them Saturday morning with chocolate icing, large Nilla wafers, mini Nilla wafers, I cut small marshmallows in half for eyes and I used black and red gel for the nose and eyes. All the kids loved them, but they thought they were bought at the grocery store and didn’t believe they were homemade.

Here are the finished products. How cute are they?

If you’d like to contribute a recipe, either send me the recipe and I’ll make it to the best of my ability, or you can make it and then send me the recipe and photos to food@thefoodsex.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Baking: Laura, Contributors, Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.