Sunflower Cupcakes | Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

I finished college!

 

So I know that that is a weird intro for a tutorial about Sunflower Cupcakes. What would have been better was "It's still summer!" or "Here's something to brighten up your mornings - ". Well, I could have said that but I really made these as my graduation cupcakes :)

If you have read the "about me" page of this blog, you know that I am studying at the University of the Philippines. UP has this tradition of planting sunflowers during summer season (which is March-May for the Philippines), which symbolizes our graduation (I think it's a very pretty tradition, but don't ask me why because I can't answer that). This year is different, because they started planting around May, since we had our academic calendar shift. What used to be an April graduation moved to June.

Since March, I was already thinking of how to make these cupcakes. My biggest dilemma was the flavor of the base cupcakes. Then I thought, why not make simple, flavorful chocolate cupcakes? Yeahhh, that sounds nice. It would be a nice contrast to the bright yellow frosting!

Chocolate Cupcake

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Total time: 30 mins
Yield: Approx. 15 cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups Flour
• 1/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 2 tsps Baking Powder
• 3/4 cup Cocoa Powder
• 1/8 tsp Salt
• 1/4 cup Butter (softened)
• 1 1/2 cups Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 3/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup Milk

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175C. Line cupcake pan.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla.
4. Add the flour mixture alternatively with milk.
5. Spoon 1.5 tbsps of the mixture into each cupcake liner. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven.

Recipe adapted from WikiHow - sorry can't find the link anymore :(

For the Sunflower effect, I used the Wilton tip #70 which is a grass tip.
Simply pipe the petals as you would on a normal leaf. Start from the outside circle at a 160 angle (slightly angled), working your way to the inside. Make sure not to pipe it too long that it'll drop at the sides, and don't apply too much pressure. Once you've almost covered the whole thing (the center should still be a little bare), sprinkle some chocolate chips on it. Make sure the chips are on the inner circle only.

Even though my graduation was 2 months ago, I'm still posting this because it's still summer in other parts of the world! Take Canada, for example, where my cousin (Hi Colleen!) lives. Luckily, she was able to come home here during my graduation because it was her summer vacation! She also helped me in designing these cupcakes ;)

I hope these cupcakes will brighten your day no matter what the weather or the occasion is! <3