Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

For some reason A has been begging for 3 days to make cupcakes...I think he saw the toy story sprinkles his grandma brought him and the liners. So I finally broke down and made them even though I know he only really cares about the frosting.

I decided to go with chocolate cupcakes so I went with a tried and true recipe, Hershey's Best Chocolate cake. I will warn you this recipe IS NOT good for cupcakes. It is very thin and is very hard to pour into cupcake tins...if I didn't have a little one begging specifically for cupcakes I would have gone the cake route! I made quite the mess even after moving the batter into a measuring cup with a spout!

Hershey's Chocolate Cake-adapted from Hershey
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk(I did use almond milk)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup applesauce
1 batch of peanut butter frosting

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together dry ingredients. Add in milk, oil, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 mins. Stir in boiling water. Pour into floured and greased cake pans or muffin tins.(NOT recommended for muffin tins though) Bake for 30-35 mins for cake or 22-25 mins for cupcakes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

*I got one dozen mini cupcakes, 16 regular size, and 4 ice cream cone cakes...it made quite a lot! These were quite tasty, super moist, perfectly chocolatey and even had a bit of crunch around the edges. YUM!