Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

I found this recipe on The Repressed Pastry Chef blog and modified it a little to make birthday cupcakes for Kathy (my future mother-in-law). Everyone really liked them; the cupcakes were fluffy and had good flavor! This recipe has no eggs in it.

This recipe makes 2 dozen cupcakes (24).

Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of flour
• 2/3 cups of Hershey's cocoa powder
• 2 tsp of baking soda
• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 cups of cold water
• 2/3 cup of vegetable oil
• 3 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 tsp of mint extract
• 2 tbsp of white vinegar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Stir together the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl: flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt
3. Whisk together the wet ingredients in a separate medium size bowl: cold water, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, mint extract, and white vinegar. 
4. In a large bowl, combine 1/3 of the dry ingredients and 1/2 of the wet ingredients. Once that is combined, add 1/2 of the remaining dry ingredients and all of the remaining wet ingredients and stir again. After that is combined, add the remaining dry ingredients and stir a little while longer until everything is completely combined. 
5. Use a ladle to pour the batter into cupcake liners in a muffin/cupcake pan. 
6. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, until you can stick a toothpick in the center of the cupcakes without any dough/batter coming out on it when you pull the toothpick out. 
7. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting.
8. To frost, you can either buy store-bought chocolate frosting or use this homemade recipe that I used to make mint buttercream frosting. You can also add any sprinkles if you want after frosting.