Winter is Coming/ It's Baking Time

I love winter. Don't you? Don't you just love like to wake up in a white morning where the rooftops, the trees, the cars and many more are covered with snow. That white blanket just makes me smile. Reading a book while wearing my fuzzy socks and drinking hot chocolate in front of the window while it is snowing outside makes me more than happy actually. 

Last Wednesday and Thursday it snowed heavily. I mean it snowed as if it would never stop. But the governorship did not cancel the school for a day. What a great idea to make an Istanbul-habitant to suffer. We were stuck in the Istanbul traffic for hours. I wished it was a snow day and I could have baked at home. (By the way we even prayed for snow at school as a class so that the school would be cancelled for a day because of the snow). When I finally arrived at school I completely changed my mind. The school was "beau-ti-ful". It is one of the rare times when I feel that I actually like my school. The view was great. It was a great place for a photographer. I  just tried to capture every branch of the tree, every rooftop and many other stuff. You can probably imagine how my camera roll looks like at the moment. Here are some photos (before all of the snow "war" happened) that I think you might enjoy: 

Enough with the snow photos, let's get to the cooking part. 
I wasn't able to bake or cook this week and the previous one because I was busy like hell. I was cramming all the time; morning, midday, night, midnight. Looks like it is fun isn't it. Well it wasn't that much pleasant because I had Biology, Chemistry and Math tests in one week. Isn't that crazy? I was about to lose my mind but finally the weekend came. 

As soon as I got home I took out my cookbook and started to bake these "Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes". It is one of all-all-time-winter recipe. Since tomorrow is one of my friend's birthday, I decided to bake these cupcakes. However he does't like frosting so they do not have any frosting on top. Sorry for that. 

So, here is the recipe for Non-Frosted-Brownie-Cupcakes:

Ingredients:
85 g. butter
300 g. chocolate chips
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cups (30 g.) sweetened cocoa 
1/8 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)




Instructions:
1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2) Melt the butter and 230 g. of chocolate chips. P.S. do not forget the spatula in the chocolate or you might end up with a kitchen disaster. 

3) In a large mixing bowl (or in an electrical mixer) whisk together the sugar and eggs. Add in the flour, cocoa and baking soda. Give it a stir.

See all the flour on the sides? Don't let them just hang out there. Let them join the party by using a spatula. 











4)  Then stir in the melted chocolate until well combined. Finally stir in the remaining chocolate chips and walnuts (if you are using an electrical mixer, do not use it in this step. It might damage the mixer) 

5) Line the muffin tray with cupcake liners. 

6) By using an ice cream scoop fill the cupcake liners with 3/4 full batter. 

7) Bake until a firm crust forms on top, about 20 minutes. 

8) When baking is done, take them out from the oven. Let them rest in the tray for 5 minutes. Then transfer them to a wire rack and let them cool. 

Enjoy.