Moist Chocolate Cupcakes and My Mom's Birthday Cake

My friend Dulce at work was kind enough to switch shifts with me so that I could go to my soccer practise.  As a thank you, I offered to bake her what ever she would like, and she choose a classic chocolate cupcake.  My favorite way to make chocolate cupcakes is to have a very moist cake and yummy rich white icing.  I found this recipe on Southern Living and amongst my search I also noticed that RecipeGirl used it on her website as well. 

I didn't think that Dulce would need 24 cupcakes so I decided to use the other half of the batter for my mom's birthday cake.  It was just going to be me, my mom, and my sister for dinner so I thought just a small chocolate cake would be perfect, especially since my mom is the biggest chocoholic I know!  The cupcakes turned out perfect, the were very moist (I noticed that they were more moist the next day stored in a air tight tupperware container overnight) and the icing was nice and creamy. 

For the icing on the cupcakes I just used a basic buttercream icing and for my mom's chocolate cake I used the fudge icing from this cake that I made a while back because it is so good and fudgey.  I cut the cake in half and poured half of the fudge icing between the two layers for a nice fudge flavor in the middle.  Dulce enjoyed her cupcakes, my mom was pleasently surprised with the cake and I got to enjoy both desserts!