The Curious Lark: Mozart and Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

Hello everyone,

It's only Wednesday, but it's been quite a rough beginning of the week for me... eek...

By last night I was physically and mentally exhausted,

and was dealing with a headache and an upset stomach,

--I never get headaches so I'm not the best at dealing with these..--

so today I decided to give myself the day off.

On the agenda for the day?

Mozart and Cupcakes.

I'm in the process of deciding which Mozart violin concerto I want to learn,

so I've been listening to 1 and 2 non stop this morning.

I love them both, but I think I'm leaning more towards the 2nd one...?

As much as I love the Bach Chaconne,

I need something to balance it out...

And while listening, I thought I would try my hand at making some cupcakes.

In our 'Experimental Kitchen', we've succeeded in creating many things,

but cupcakes have never made the list of successes as of yet.

And since I had a lot of essential oils leftover from my laundry detergent project,

I thought I'd use some of that in the cupcakes!

--Make sure that your peppermint essential oil is food grade! I used the DoTerra brand--

so here's the Mint Chocolate Cupcake that made an appearance at our apartment today!

and here's the recipe, modified from this one

What you need:

for the cupcakes

8 Tbs (1 stick) of salted butter, room temperature, cut into chunks

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 ounces of bittersweet dark chocolate, cut into chunks

3/4 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 large eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

5 drops of peppermint essential oil (food grade)

for frosting

4 oz cream cheese

3 Tbs butter

1 cup powdered sugar

2 drops of peppermint essential oil (food grade)

chocolate chips, mint leaves, chocolate covered sunflower seeds,

or more cocoa powder for garnish if you feel fancy like that ;)

Let's bake!

1. Use a double boiler, or add an inch or two of water to a saucepan and place a glass or a metal bowl over the saucepan to create your own double boiler. (what I did)

Bring the water to a simmer, and into this bowl sitting on top,

add the butter chunks, chocolate chunks, and the cocoa powder.

let the butter and chocolate melt, and whisk until ingredients become creamy.

Remove from heat and let cool.

2. While the chocolate is cooling, mix together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl.

3. In a large bowl, beat the eggs.

Then add the sugar and the peppermint essential oil and beat them some more.

4. Mix in the chocolate mixture (make sure this is cool enough so it doesn't cook the eggs!)

5. Add half of the dry ingredients (flour, soda, powder) to the wet ingredients and mix.

Mix in the Greek yogurt, and then pour and mix the rest of the dry ingredients.

6. Fill the lined muffin cups about 2/3 way full (mine filled 12 muffin tins)

and bake for 15-18 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

tada!

7. While your cupcakes are baking, make your frosting by beating the butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and the peppermint essential oils together.