Root Beer Chocolate Cake Cupcakes

Posted by - Vivian

I made some root beer cupcakes from the Prepared Pantry .  I don't know what went wrong but they rose beautifully and then flattened out making it impossible for me to remove them from the pan! I ended up cutting them out of the pan by removing the flat tops.  Ended up looking ugly but still edible! I topped with butter cream frosting and pop rocks.


Root Beer Chocolate Cake Recipe

3/4 cup shortening

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 tablespoon root beer flavor (or vanilla but will not have as deep of root beer flavor to the cake)

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 12-ounce can root beer, not sugar-free

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

 Cream the shortening and sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat for five or six minutes so that the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the extract.

In another bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, salt, and soda together.

In three or four additions, alternately add the dry ingredients and the liquids to the creamed mixture starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix only until smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake a 9x13 inch pan for 35 to 40 minutes, cupcakes for 15 minutes, or until the cake tests done with a toothpick. Cool completely before frosting with the frosting of your choice.

Baker’s Note: When making a cake such as this, you are mixing oil (shortening) and water (soda pop and buttermilk)—which don’t mix. The egg yolks act as an emulsifier, a bonding agent between the oil and water molecules and the flour absorbs much of the water. That is why you start with the flour addition—so that the water doesn’t overload the fat mixture before the flour is there to start absorbing water. It’s also why you add the liquids in stages between the flour additions.