(in other words, these are easy and very quick.)
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups Flour
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 Tbsp. Cinnamon
1 cup Granulated Sugar
2 tsp. Vanilla
1 TBSP Vinegar
1/2 cup Oil
1 cup Water
22 squares of chocolate or 22 Hershey’s kisses
Optional sprinkles
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit.
2. Line cupcake pan if using liners; otherwise grease and flour it.
3. In a big bowl combine dry ingredients. Mix them up with a wooden spoon so they’re all evenly distributed.
4. In a medium bowl or 2 cup measuring cup, combine wet ingredients.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well.
6. Fill the cupcake liners. If you fill them just under half full, you can make 22 cupcakes, which should cover an entire preschool class. If you fill them more, it will make about 18 cupcakes.
7. Bake the cupcakes. It will take 12-14 minutes, but check them at 10 just to be safe. Go spellcheck your workplan while you wait. Set the oven timer so you don’t get all distracted by logframes.
8. Once you take the cupcakes out of the oven, immediately put a chocolate square on top of each.
9. Go to the first cupcake you put the chocolate on, and use a toothpick to spread the now melted chocolate all over the top of the cupcake. Add the sprinkles if you’re using them. Alternately, stick a Hershey’s kiss on top and leave it alone.
Notes:
1. The advantage to using chocolate instead of icing is you don’t have to wait for the cupcakes to cool and then frost them. You can just spread the chocolate, pack the cupcakes into a shoebox and load them into the car still warm. They’ll be cool enough to eat by the time they get to the kids, and the chocolate looks very pretty on top. With colored jimmies, it's downright fancy looking. Well, kid fancy.
2. This is not grownup food. This is kid food. The cupcakes are very sweet and their only flavor is cinnamon and vanilla. It’s not complex. Kids love them, though. If I was making these for grownups, I'd add cloves and ginger in addition to the cinnamon, double the amount of salt, and cut the sugar to 3/4 cup. I might also switch one of the teaspoons of vanilla for almond or orange extract.
