Coffee cupcakes

A few months ago while on a shopping frenzy at Spun Sugar in Berkeley I bought dark and white chocolate covered espresso beans which I thought would be great cupcake toppers. I finally got around to making a coffee cupcake a few weekends ago, just so I could adorn them with the little delicious morsels:


Since I was already making brisket that day, I didn't want anything too complicated so I decided to just alter a box recipe. I used devil's food cupcake mix (I replace the water with 1 c. buttermilk and 1 extra egg than called for on the box) and added 3 tbsp. of espresso. The espresso ended up throwing off the moisture balance in the batter a bit and my cupcakes came out a little on the dry side, so next time I might add a little extra buttermilk to even it out. The frosting is canned vanilla with a tablespoon of espresso. I know it looks like cookies and cream, but it's coffee :).