Brown Sugar-Hazelnut Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting

I figure my first recipe entry should start on a good note. So, this is a flash back to a few months ago, but this is also one of my greatest baking accomplishments.

I found this recipe on the New York Times potluck page, and it sounded too delicious to pass up. I don’t love cake because I usually find it too dry, and don’t usually choose to bake cake or cupcakes. However, I couldn’t escape the cupcake craze.

So, one weekend last fall I ventured home (to the parents’ house) so I could use all of their fancy baking tools, mainly their KitchenAid mixer (I need to buy one of these soon, but don’t want to shell out the 200 bucks). I wasn’t very optimistic about these cupcakes, but they came out amazingly well. They were very rich, and even though they were so good, I couldn’t eat more than one in a sitting (a rare feeling for me!) So even though the recipe only makes 8 cupcakes, this was actually just enough for me and for sharing. 

Original recipe here