Cinnamon Spiced Chocolate Cupcakes {And Frosting Too!}

There is nothing like the smell of freshly ground REALLY GOOD coffee. 

I recently won a bag of French Roast {originating from Brazil} at a friend's picnic and decided to have it ground up to make something I have longed for all summer: cold press coffee. Just look at how beautiful it is to make.

I've drank so many iced coffees in the past few weeks, it's understandably starting to interfere with my ability to sleep at night. On one of these late late nights, I was browsing through some binders that contain recipes I clip out of magazines and I long to try. One of them was for pomegranate cupcakes clipped from a beautiful Real Simple magazine spread. One simple substitution {cold press coffee for pomegranate juice} and one small addition {2 tsp cinnamon added to the batter} later and we've got ourselves a yummy cupcake treat.

I'm not sure if the addition of the cold press coffee is enough to call these mocha cupcakes, but both coffee and cinnamon compliment the flavor of chocolate, especially here with our Trader Joes cocoa. This particular recipe is not the moistest cupcake I've ever had, but then again, I've never met a cupcake I didn't like.

To make the cupcakes:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder {I use Trader Joes}

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp kosher salt

2 tsp cinnamon

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup cold press coffee

To make the frosting:

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Fill a muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon into a bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl in a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar for one minute. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each until well blended into the batter. Mix in the vanilla and beat another minute. With the mixture on low, mix in half of the flour mixture just to incorporate. Mix in the cold press coffee to blend. Add the last of the flour mixture and mix just to incorporate again. The mixture will be smooth.

Fill each paper liner 1/4 full with batter. Bake until the tops are just springy to the touch, or about 25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack, and then remove the cupcakes to cool completely. 

For the frosting, Beat the 2 cups of heavy whipping cream in a stand mixer using the whisk attatchment. Add one by one the vanilla, cinnamon, and powdered sugar until soft peaks begin to form. Scrape the frosting into a gallon sized Ziplock bag, clip off the corner, and pipe onto COOLED cupcakes. Sprinkle with chocolate shavings or a sugar, cocoa bean, & chocolate grinder like me.

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