Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Baking is one of the few areas in cooking where A.) I always follow the recipe, and B.) I love to cheat!  It's amazing what you can do using a boxed mix as your base.  I had a club meeting this past week with a Mexican theme, and all members were asked to bring something to share.  Usually I don't crave chocolate, but for some reason it sounded good to me at that time.  I randomly remembered back to a 6th grade social studies project - we were learning about the Aztec civilization, and one of the things we did was make mexican hot chocolate, which is basically dark chocolate with cinnamon.  Ah ha!  Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes were born.  These are SO easy, taste great, and look cute. Even if you're not much of a baker (like me!), you should try these.


For the Cupcakes:

• 1 box of dark chocolate brownie mix (your choice of brand, I think I used Duncan Hines)
• Follow the preparation instructions on the box for the liquid ingredients, then add:
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon.

Mix well, pour into greased muffin cups, and bake according to box intstructions (I think I did a 325 degree  for 25 minutes or so, but checked after 20)

For the frosting, you have two options.  You can buy a canister of cream cheese frosting and add 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to it, or you can make your own:

• 1/2 brick of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 stick of butter, softened
• 1 cup of confectioners sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix well. 

Once your cupcakes are cooled, you can frost them. I like to use a piping bag so I can control the design, but you could just as easily spread the frosting on top with a knife. To decorate, sprinkle with some coarse sanding sugar, dark chocolate savings, some mini marshmallows (it is a hot chocolate style cupcake afterall!) and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I like how the cinnamon makes the marshmallows look sort of toasted.

Enjoy!