chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing

these cupcakes turned out so well! i made these for our new neighbor kids next door, anna and connor -- they are cuties. so i wanted to make them a 'kid friendly' dessert, and what better than chocolate cake.

recipe
cake
1egg
1stick unsalted butter, softened
11/2c flour
1/2c cocoa powder (optional for chocolate cupcakes)
1/2c buttermilk
1tsp. vanilla
1tsp. baking soda
1/2tsp. salt
1c sugar
1/2c hot water

icing
3c powdered sugar
3tbs. cocoa powder (optional for chocolate icing)
2tbs. whole milk
2tbs. buttermilk
4tbs. unsalted butter, softened
1tsp. vanilla
1/8tsp. salt

preheat oven to 35o degrees. line the muffin tin with paper cups. combine the cupcake ingredients in a bowl, adding the water last. beat until smooth. fill the cupcake holders evenly with the batter. bake for 20-25minutes. for the icing combine all the ingredients together. mix until smooth and creamy. cool completely! then ice and decorate the cupcakes.

i got this recipe from emeril and thought it was a great success! (usually he has such complicated recipes) i decorated them with sprinkles and chopped up hershey's bars. the only changes i made was use half&half mixed with water instead of the whole milk (didn't have any) and baked them for only 17minutes and they were definitely done. oh and what's great about this recipe is that you can mix up the cakes and icings however you like -- vanilla/chocolate cake, vanilla/chocolate icing. just add/leave out the cocoa powder. so easy and yummy.