One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes with Gumdrops

I honestly sit in bed at night and read this book as if it's a novel. As a matter of fact I nominate for next months book club ;)

Just kidding.

Anyways. I was going to visit teach my friend Shawna this week and she told me that she is more of chocolate person than a fruit person so I decided to go with the One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes. The first reason being that I wanted to make chocolate and the second reason was the One Bowl part really got me. I swear my kitchen looks like a tornado after making all of Martha's cupcakes.
So you basically combine flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, eggs, buttermilk, vegetable oil, vanilla and water into a bowl and mix. SO EASY!


Bake at 350 degrees for about 17 minutes and there you have it...

So I made them the night before and set them out to cool. Mind you my son was fast asleep.

So when I get back I see this...

And then this....
This little sinker seriously ate like 3 cupcakes and then destroyed a few more. Good thing I was taking this to just one person and it only made 13 cupcakes. So I didn't feel to horrible taking over a few less....then the next day while I was turned around making the frosting(the disaster I will talk about in a minute) this little stinker climbed over the baby gate and so quietly climbed up the cabinet and polished off two more! Errrr. I swear he knows he is being so bad because he does it so sneakily but there is just something about cupcakes that brings out the worst in him.

Anyways.

Honestly I was going to for go the whole gum drop thing because the idea made me want to gag(no I am not pregnant) but then I thought if I am going to do Martha's reciepes then I have to do what is written. SO I went to two flippin grocery stores to find gum drops but everyone had assorted spice drops and Martha's specifically said gum drops. I swear my grocer probably runs the other way when he sees me.

He is probably thinking "Lady you have shopped here for years and why now are you buggin me about all these random things that I have no idea where they are because I try not to work to hard."

Okay okay that is kind of mean...true...but mean.

Anyways.

I found strawberry gum drops and I went with it.

Then it was the frosting.

See post below.

I can't even tell you how many batches I did.

How much flippin butter I wasted

How many flippin eggs I wasted.

I could NOT achieve the fluff it's was runny.

I watched a video and I can see where I could change a few little things that will hopefully make a difference.

If not I am going to have to in-list the help of a professional because I will NOT let Swiss Buttercream Meringue beat me. I WILL NOT!

(three batches later)

Since it was now only 20 minutes before I was supposed to leave I decided to just curse the entire frosting thought and went with fluffy vanilla which is confection sugar, butter and vanilla. Even I can't screw that up.

By the time I let my husband have one and my kids split one I was left with 6 cupcakes.

I could not bring myself to put the gumdrops on top because...well okay because it just made the cupcake look like a boob. I don't know why but it just did and I did not want to visit my friend with book cupcakes. Nope. I just wasn't going to do it. I already screwed the recipe up with the frosting so I just stuck the gum drops in a bag and brought them to Shawna.

As far as difficulty I would say the cupcakes are SO easy.

Probably the easiest in the book.

The frosting is more complicated but I think it tasted good with the vanilla frosting.

I am NOT a chocolate person at all if you couldn't tell my all my fruit choices already so I couldn't really tell you how the taste was. My husband who is all about everything chocolate said they were okay he thinks they need more chocolate. Shawna said she liked them and those are who I made them for so that is what counts :)

I am going to have to make these again.

My goal is when I mess up to make it again until it turns out.

SO I will keep these gum drops handy.

(even though I am munching on them as I type)