Faiz's 6th birthday & recipe for the simplest moist chocolate cupcakes

Alhamdulillah, Faiz is now 6 years old. I made him chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing to bring to school, chocolate pavlova for us to celebrate at home, and my husband took us out to Bangsar Village for dinner and for Faiz to choose his own birthday present at Toys r Us.

I had asked him last week, whilst we were spending our evening at the kids playground, on what type of cake that he wants for his birthday. He told me that he wanted sonic the hedgehog cake. I thought of drawing the character using chocolate to place on top of the cupcakes but I didn't manage to do so. I had instead printed pictures of sonic to paste at the party favors. Come to think of it, I should had just paste it on a stick or something and place it on top of the cupcakes.. X ingat pulak nak buat camtu, bila dah petang baru teringat.

Anyway, I found a new chocolate cupcake recipe that I love, and I had used this recipe to make the cupcakes for him to bring to school. Not only that the recipe is very easy to follow, it yields moist and delicious chocolate cupcakes, definitely a keeper. Chocolate cake recipe adapted from The Farm Chicks.

Moist chocolate cupcake recipe:

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1 3/4 cup cake flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 medium eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup boiling water

Preheat the oven to 175 degree Celsius. In a mixing bowl, mix together the sugar, brown sugar, cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add in the eggs, milk, vegetable oil and vanilla essence and beat using a mixer till well combined. Add in the boiling water and mix until just blended. Pour into cupcake paper/cup (I used medium sized cupcake cups) and bake for about 16 minutes (or until cook, depending on the size of the cupcake paper/cup used).

As for the decorations, I had adapted the buttercream icing recipe from Hasue, with some modification to the recipe.

Vanilla buttercream icing recipe:

50 grams butter

450 grams krimwell

300 grams icing sugar (sifted)

1 tablespoon vanilla essence

Beat in the butter and krimwell for a few minutes, then add in the icing sugar and continue mixing. Add in the vanilla essence and beat until well incorporated.

Party favors

Okay, got to go for now, already too long a blog post. Will blog about the chocolate pavlova that I made for Faiz next. Till then, here's a sneak preview of the chocolate pavlova, yumm :-)