Coffee & Donuts Cupcakes

I was making donuts for a bake sale for a few months ago and had a bit of batter left over from several batches. I make a few mini donuts to check their quality, but then realized that they had much more potential than being a half pint donut. A few minutes later,I was whipping up a batch of mocha frosting. Pipe that onto a dark chocolate cupcake with a hint of espresso powder, top it with a sprinkled donut, and you have what I deemed "the breakfast of champions." Hopefully, Kurt Vonnegut approved.



Chocolate Cupcakes
recipe adapted from VCTTOW

1 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon ground espresso
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons coffee extract
1 teaspoon chocolate extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (Valrhona if you can find it)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. Curdle the milk with the vinegar. Add the espresso, sugar, oil, & extracts. Whisk rapidly. Sift together dry ingredients in large bowl. Add met and mix until combined and smooth. Fill liners 3/4 of the way and bake 16-20 minutes.

While your cupcakes are cooling you want to bake your donuts & make your frosting. If you are a great multi-tasker, you could even bake your donuts and cupcakes at the same time. If you are gonna attempt this, I recommend prepping all your ingredients first. I do the dry ingredients for both items, then the wet. In this instance, I scooped my cupcakes while I was melting the butter for the donut batter. Then I tossed the cupcakes into the oven while I was making the donut batter and filling the pans. By the time you are finish with that they will both be ready to pull out of the oven at roughly the same time. Just be sure to put your donuts in the oven gently so that your cupcakes don't fall!


Mocha Frosting
very minorly adapted from Sweetapolita

1 cup Earth Balance
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons coffee extract
5 oz quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped, melted and cooled
1/4 cup almond milk

Beat together the Earth Balance and powdered sugar. Add the extracts and mix again. Slowly pour in melted chocolate while the mixer is on. Add almond milk to desired consistency. You may not need all of the almond milk, but you could need a bit more. It's up to your preferences and a lot of little factors, like humidity and what not.


These cupcakes sold out so quickly that I was shocked. Everyone kept crooning over them and taking pictures on their fancy phones. I was all pink and my cheeks hurt from grinning. It felt so good that I made another batch to box up for a friend's birthday. I baked them in blue polka dot liners, put them in a pink polka dot box, and wrapped the box with baker's twine & tied a candle into the center of the bow. Major cute factor. Basically what I am saying is that these cupcakes will impress everyone. You can't lose.