Basil Cupcakes with Chili Frosting

I have always been a fan of a cupcake, before the "fad" happened. My mom would make us cupcakes all the time and while I do have her recipe, it NEVER included Basil. So I wasn't sure if it would work. I started searching for basil-related items and ran across this recipe. I made the brownies and my appointed taste-testers loved them. Basil and chocolate are amazing together. My kitchen smelled wonderful while I did these. But, I wanted to incorporate the Chili frosting. I played a bit and came up with this recipe. No, you do not have to use the Chile frosting but if you did, you will never want anything but!


Basil Cupcakes with Chili Frosting
by Traci
adapted from Tasty Kitchen's Chocolate Basil Brownies

Cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup cocoa
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk
4 cubes Dorot Chopped Basil (= 4 teaspoons)

Preheat oven to 325°F. Prepare cupcake tin. I don't like liners, so I spray my cupcake tin with non-stick spray. If you use liners, please do so.

We will do a dry to wet mixture here. Combine all of your dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl combine all of your wet ingredients, including the basil. Mix very well. Add a bit of your dry, a cup at a time, mixing well. This is going to be a dense cupcake, packed with flavor!

I like to measure my mix out. I use a 1/2 cup measuring cup and start there, depending on how many or how big I want to make them. For these I used about 3/4 cup per cupcake.

Bake for about 15 minutes. Bake time may vary! Take out and cool on a rack.

For the frosting I used a basic 7-Minute Frosting recipe:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

5 Tablespoons water

1/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites

3 ounces melted chocolate

1 cube Dorot Chopped Chili (= 1 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Get a double boiler set-up going (one pot on the stove with boiling water and another pot for the frosting.) In the pot for the frosting add sugar, cream of tartar, water and salt. With a hand mixer, mix for 1 minute. Place over the boiling water pot. Add egg whites, melted chocolate, chili cube, and vanilla. Mix for 7 minutes. Take off heat. Let set for a couple of minutes. It will tighten up at this point.

Frost your cupcakes.

Enjoy this combination. You will be the star of the show sharing these with friends and family. Just for fun, don't tell them what's in the cupcakes and make them guess the ingredients!