A day late, but I feel I have a good excuse – yesterday I ran the NYC marathon! So, even though I actually baked these last Friday for Halloween, you can understand that when I got back to my apartment yesterday evening, I crashed pretty hard. Like 7:30 and I was in bed hard. Thus the Monday post this week.

Now, I know that Halloween is over and my cutely decorated cupcakes are no longer relevant in terms of decoration, but the base of these cupcakes in no way loses its relevance with the changing month. In fact, they are probably even better for all of the gluttonous eating coming up.

I also had a mini crisis when trying to identify these, but have decided they belong (relatively) squarely in the brownie category. The dense chocolate part is really the star of the recipe.

First, melt together the butter and chocolate in a microwave in 30 second intervals at 50% power, stirring after each interval until smooth.

Stir in the sugar, then the vanilla extract.

Stir in the eggs, one at a time, making sure the batter is smooth before each new addition. I don’t know what it is about brownie recipes, but I always feel the need to manually mix with a wooden spoon – maybe because that’s how I used to make boxed mixes growing up.

Add the flour and salt, and stir to combine completely.

Stir in the chocolate chunks. This really makes the recipe brownie rather than cupcake – when you bite into something and get a chunk, you are out of the realm of cupcakes.

Spoon the batter evenly into 12 muffin tins lined with cupcake liners. It will look like there’s too much batter – don’t worry, because these are brownies they don’t rise all that much.

Bake at 325°F for 20-23 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with wet chunks – you don’t want to overbake brownies and end up with gross dry lumps!

Allow to cool on a wire rack before decorating with buttercream or cream cheese frosting, depending on your taste.

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator – they are especially good chilled!

Look how cute they came out!

Enjoy!

Brownie Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chunks

Directions:

1. Melt together chocolate and butter in a microwave at 30 second intervals on 50% power, stirring until smooth.
2. Stir in sugar, then vanilla extract.
3. Stir in eggs, one at a time, making sure smooth after each addition.
4. Stir in flour and salt. Mix in chocolate chunks.
5. Pour evenly into 12 lined muffin tins and bake at 325°F for 20-23 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with wet crumbs. Allow to cool completely before decorating.