Um, folks, we have another winner. This one was so good it has bumped another cupcake out of the running altogether. Bye bye regular old chocolate, hello hot chocolate! In Taylor’s words, this is a much more sophisticated chocolate. In Robin’s words, mmmmm. The texture was fascinating. So moist, and yet fluffy and slightly grainy (in a good way). Something about the combination of ingredients that go into the batter, it comes out of the oven full of flavors you can’t quite identify. Deep, rich flavors. While we didn’t add enough cayenne to make it spicy, the pinch we did add brings a depth to the cake like adding salt might, but much more pronounced. It’s like the cayenne becomes a super salt – that brings out the fine details of all the other ingredients within the cake.

In other words, it’s darn good.

We topped these off with a simple cream cheese buttercream, flavored with almond and a touch of vanilla. I jokingly suggested we add some color to the snow white frosting, and immediately both Taylor and Robin shouted “Purple!”. Right, ok, purple it is. And how purple they are. Topped with some pearlescent jimmies, they make for a very glamorous cupcake.