Day 40: Chocolate Cupcakes

I wasn't sure what to make for today's recipe. I looked through my menu plan and nothing jumped out at me. It was one of those days where I wasn't in the mood for anything. I decided that my kids deserved a treat-they have been pretty good lately. So I grabbed a box of Betty Crocker cake mix and the muffin cups and started baking. My muffin pan holds 24 cupcakes and the recipe made 27. Since I couldn't justify making my poor out of shape oven work any harder when I had a perfectly good DO with nothing to do, I fired up the coals. I honestly had no expectations when it came to DO cupcakes. I figured they would take longer to cook and wouldn't rise much. I was pleasantly surprised!

Dutch Oven Cupcakes

DO size depends on how many you make.

1 box of you favorite cake mix, made according to package directions.

Preheat your DO for at least 10 minutes. You want it nice and hot. Put the cupcakes in the DO. Reynolds makes a great cupcake liner that is made of aluminum so that it stands up without using a muffin pan. Bake using the required coals for the size of oven you are using, with 2/3 of the heat on top and 1/3 on the bottom. I only had 3 cupcakes to bake so I used a 10" DO with 7 coals on the bottom and 14 on top. I took them off the bottom coals after about 15 minutes. Sooner in hot weather. Mine baked in 20 minutes just like it said on the box!

The Finished Product

The bottoms are perfectly done!

The one on the left was made in my oven, the one on the right was made in the DO.

In the DO.

What I Learned

These were surprisingly easy. I was prepared for them to take forever, but they cooked in just the right amount of time. I probably could (and should) have let my oven preheat a little longer. Even though they didn't rise as high as the ones cooked inside, they were still light and yummy!

The Review

I can't believe these actually worked! I did it on a whim and they worked! I don't think there is anything you can't cook in a DO. I am going to try them again and preheat my DO a little more. They were really easy. These get an A just for the fact that they worked.