Chocolate Cupcakes and Coffee Cream Cheese Frosting

Cupcake Mixture:
2 cups cake flour
1 ¾ cups sugar
¾ cup cocoa
1 ¼ cups milk
¾ cup shortning
3 eggs
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon baking powder


Preheat oven to 350ºF. Place liners in 2 dozen 3-inch muffin pan cups or grease and flour cups. Into a large bowl, measure all cupcake ingredients except frosting. With mixer at low speed, beat until well mixed, constantly scraping bowl. At high speed, beat 5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Spoon into muffin pan cups, filling each half full. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick in center of one comes out clean and dry. Cool in pans on wire racks, 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely on racks. Prepare frosting. Then tip the tops of cupcakes into frosting and turn slightly to coat or put on with a spatula.

Coffee Cream Cheese Frosting:
6 oz cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
16 oz confectioners’ sugar
4 teaspoons of instant coffee

In small bowl with mixer at medium speed, beat together the softened cream cheese and evaporated milk. Beat in vanilla, salt, sugar and instant coffee until well blended.