Mint Aero Chocolate Cupcakes

After making my Green Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies (which only lasted two days between Trevor and I), I knew I had to bake something else minty and chocolatey.  Did I mention that these are my two favourite dessert combinations?

When getting ice cream as a kid, I always picked the mint chocolate flavour if they carried it (and I preferred the chocolate chunks over the chocolate chips – picky, I know). When I used to drink hot chocolate, I would go through tubs of mint flavoured kind. Now a days, while still enjoying mint chocolate desserts, I even go as far as carrying mint flavoured lip gloss and gum in my purse.

If I had my way, I’m sure I would even have a mint chocolate flavoured wedding cake!

Apparently February 19th was National Chocolate Mint Day, which explains so much that my birthday was only a few days beforehand. 🙂

Since my love of mint chocolate has carried me through my childhood, naturally I’ve found myself gravitating towards mint flavoured chocolate bars. After Eight and Junior Mints hold a special place in my heart, but the one I tend to see on every grocery store shelf is the Mint Aero bar.

Mint Aero bars are delicious, there is really no other way to describe it. The bars taste light and airy and the mint is cool, refreshing and not overpowering. I knew I had to put this into my baking.

In order to steer myself away from another mint cookie recipe, I decided to incorporate them into chocolate cupcakes. The results? Delicious, of course!

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Yield: 12 cupcakes

Mint Aero Chocolate Cupcakes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tsp mint extract
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 1/2 Mint Aero chocolate bars

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350*F.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, white sugar, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together oil, water, mint extract and vinegar. Using a sharp knife, roughly chop one Mint Aero bar.
4. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and add the chopped Mint Aero bar. Finely chop up half of the second Mint Aero bar and set aside the other half to enjoy later.
5. Line a muffin tin with baking liners and fill 3/4 full with chocolate cupcake batter. Sprinkle the tops with bits of the second Mint Aero bar.
6. Bake for 13-15 minutes until the cupcake tops spring back when lightly touched. Enjoy the delicious smell of mint in your kitchen and let them cool on a wired rack.

Recipe adapted from aliciak’s vegan chocolate cake recipe

You are welcome to decorate them with frosting, but I really enjoyed the crunchy, melted minty Aero bar topping.

Also, if you are wondering if the chocolate bar goodness that you mixed into the batter will be seen after it is baked, I believe that all depends on how finely you cut up the bars. Mine had some pretty big chunks but as you can see from the above photo, most of the chocolate bar managed to melt into the cupcake.

EDIT: We just found out that these muffins taste fantastic out of the freezer. Hello new summertime treat!