I haven't posted anything this past week. I have been spending a lot of time sitting and thinking about Ayelet Galena, a"h and have been debating whether adding one more voice to the many blog postings about Ayelet was something that I wanted to do and whether I thought I could truly add something helpful or whether it would be for my own sanity. I am still not sure of that answer, but I do think it is something that I need to do, but I can't do it yet. I feel the need to sit and think about her alone, by myself, before I can put into words how following her story, dailyhas impacted me as a person, a wife and mostly, as a mother. And as much as I want to do that right now, I have to do it late at night, when the kids are sleeping and not needing me at that moment.
But at this moment, my almost two year old asked for chocolate cupcakes for a Shabbos dessert and I looked at her sweet face and even though I haven't yet cooked for Shabbos and I need to be in school today at 12:30pm, I had to bake these cupcakes. I needed to. How could I not? It's such a simple request from a little child.
So we made these cupcakes this morning, in honor of this coming Shabbos, which is called Shabbos Shira. Shira, in Hebrew, means sing. And what makes me feel more like singing than chocolate cupcakes? Not much.
I have never really enjoyed any of the recipes that I have for plain chocolate cupcakes or cake. Two google seconds later I have my recipe from a blog called MealMakeoverMoms.Their tag line, Cooking Up Healthy Meals With Kid Appeal, sounded good to me so I went for it. These moms have a recipe for Berry Good Chocolate Cupcakes. Great, I'm in. Except I didn't have any blueberries in the house and apparently a major part of this recipe is the blueberries. But blueberries are fruit and so is apple(sauce), so I felt like I could make the substitute and all would be okay. And it was. These cupcakes came out very nice, and without any appley-taste as a giveaway. A little Duncan Hines frosting on top and we were golden.
Here is my recipe, adapted a little (subbing in the applesauce, a little more flour and some extra cocoa and chocolate chips, because you can't really go wrong with extra chocolate.)
Makes 12 regular sized cupcakes or 24 mini cupcakes. Yum.
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
3/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup soy or rice milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Combine the sugar, oil, eggs, applesauce, soymilk and vanilla in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients and combine until just mixed. Divide the batter evenly into a 12 cup cupcake tin. Bake for 20 minutes and check with a toothpick to be sure they are done. The toothpick does not need to come out clean, sticky crumbs are okay.
Add frosting.
Go for the store bought, it's Friday afternoon. I did.
Store in an airtight container and serve for dessert on Shabbos.
Watch as everyone smiles.