White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Happy Valentine's Day, ya'll! To celebrate my girls and I decided to whip up some cupcakes. We chose chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate chips and strawberry frosting. Here is the recipe. 

Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Chips

10 tbsp of butter, softened
1 1/4 cups of white granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt
3/4 cup of 2% milk
1 cup of white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners.

Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. Next mix in eggs and vanilla extract. 

In a separate bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt together. 

Slowly pour the flour mixture into the batter bowl, alternating with the milk. Mix until everything is completely stirred together. You might want to stop the mixer and scrap the sides and bottom of the bowl. Next pour in the white chocolate chips and stir to even out. 

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter and bake for 20-25 minutes. I baked mine for 22 minutes. Stick the center with a toothpick, the toothpick should come out with no cake. 

This recipe makes 16 cupcakes. I cut the recipe in half today, I certainly do not need 16 cupcakes sitting around my house! 

Frost with any kind of frosting you prefer. Since today is St. Valentines Day, we did strawberry frosting and red sprinkles. I think my three year old did a great job decorating! They taste like neapolitan ice cream! 

And now for a history lesson. There are a lot of ideas about how St. Valentine's Day came into being. The most popular is that Valentine was a priest who went against orders that marriages be halted during war time. He secretly helped couples get married, got caught, served time and was executed. That is the shortened version.

But a more interesting and probably truer version is that St. Valentine's Day is another adapted pagan holiday. As many historians have pointed out, almost all holidays are adapted from pagan holidays; it was done to try to convert pagans. Lupercalia was a pre-roman holiday that lasted from February 13th to February 15th. It was a holiday that was to get rid of evil spirits and cleanse the city, helping with fertility and better health.