The Story:
St. Patrick’s Day is coming up! I know everyone is doing mint things to get some green in their desserts, and that’s fabulous. Check out my Andes Mint cupcakes or my Chocolate Mint Cupcakes, they are great. But, if you want an excuse to make something a little more daring, try pistachios.
Chocolate Pistachio Cupcakes
Servings 24 -30 cupcakes
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 box White or Yellow cake mix
- 1 3.4 oz box pistachio instant pudding
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 3/4 cup sour cream
Chocolate Buttercream:
- 3/4 cup butter softened
- 4 oz cream cheese softened
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 3-4 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pan with cupcake liners.
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2. Sift your cake mix into a small bowl to remove any lumps. Add pudding mix and stir.
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3. In a separate bowl, gently whisk eggs, buttermilk, oil almond extract and sour cream.
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4. Add your cake mix/pudding and stir until well combined.
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5. Fill liners 1/2 full (these rise a lot) and bake for 16-20 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
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6. Buttercream: Beat butter and cream cheese for 3 minutes. Scrape the bowl as needed. Add vanilla extract and cocoa powder. Slowly add powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency. If you want it to be more chocolatey, add more cocoa. If the buttercream becomes too stiff, add 1 tablespoon milk.
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7. Pipe buttercream onto cooled cupcakes and top with pistachios.
I want these for breakfast. Is that bad?!
Oh, yum! Wow, I can’t wait to give these a go – I ADORE pistachios! Thanks so much for sharing these beauties! 🙂 (And for doing something non-mint related for St. Patricks lol!)
I really love your blog! My husband has a sweet tooth, so we will be checking it out much more often! Of course, we need to get a few supplies to start making your cupcake recipes, but I plan to make cupcakes my fun summer project after I finish school in April!!
I will make this recipe this weekend…thinking on changing the flavor…how about Jello but raspberry?? I will post my results. What piping tip is this? I LOVE YOUR WORK…I being following you since last year but I can not catch on with you…I am waiting for RED VELVET!! I believe you are allergic to red dye..can u use gloves? please do not make us suffer!!!!!!!!!!
Fatima, yes yes I will get to re velvet 🙂 I actually did make it this valentines, but I didn’t get a chance to take photos. For the piping tip, check out my piping tip page, this tip is on there.
http://www.yourcupofcake.com/2012/02/piping-tips.html
This is one of the most gorgeous cupcake photos I’ve ever seen. I feel like I can taste them from here!
Love the Pistachio recipe as it reminds me of my son. His favorite was always anything Pistachio. Wish he lived closer as I know he would want his share of these.
Hi, All the recipes look yummy! I noticed you always put sour cream in the cake mix batter. What does this do? Do you have a preferred brand of cake mix?
Sour cream adds extra moisture. The brand I tend to use is Pillsbury, most other brands have switched to a smaller box size
I found this on pinterest and I thought I would love it because I love pistachios so I baked it and I tried it wasn’t that great to me my mother loved it but I’m not a big fan of the icing it was just to much but it looks like I’m going to have to bake more for my mother but thanks for the recipe!:)
Beautiful combho of pistachio green and chocolate brown!
Hey! I’ve made a few of your recipes now and they are all awesome! Adding a few ingredients to the cake mix really helps! But on a few recipes I find that the cupcakes are sinking in the middle instead of staying nice and puffy… Do you know why this might be happening? It happened with this one and raspberry lemonade… :/
That can happen for a lot of reasons… I always use pillsbury cake mixes, so make sure you use those. Also, it it just mean that the bottom of your oven cooks hotter than the top. But remember that fallen cupcakes still taste great, it only effect their look.
Yes they definitely still taste amazing! I do use pillsbury like you said in another post, i tend to get more out of it and it seems more moist! Thanks for the heads up about my oven!
Can a gluten free cake mix be used?
Yes!
I make these and top with a homemade Nutella frosting, and they are ALWAYS a hit! Great recipe!
I love the unique combination of chocolate and hazelnuts – it really is a perfect combination. The cupcakes look so delicious with the chocolate buttercream and the hazelnuts on top.