Auntie Marian’s Chocolate Covid Cupcakes

by Emily M.

These Chocolate Covid Cupcakes are so easy to make and the results are always delicious! Packing tons of flavour and viral load into each cupcake wrapper, these tasty cupcakes are the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon party while also putting all the SARS-CoV-2 concentrate in your stockroom to good use.

Growing up on a hardscrabble Iowa farm, my Auntie Marian was a proud woman. When my sisters and I were growing up, she would bake her unique twist on chocolate cupcakes for us every Sunday, because she knew it was our favourite. Locked in her floral-wallpaper-and-linoleum-lined kitchen, we girls would sit around the checkerboard table and luxuriate in the sweet aroma of chocolate cupcake batter while she would regale us with thrilling tales of how as a young lab assistant in the early twenties, she overcame the attitudes of her time, bravely smuggling vials of coronavirus out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and into her own underground enrichment lab. Although I have baked my own cupcakes for ten years now, I have yet to find a cupcake as wonderful as the delicate bursts of fluffy goodness which emerged fresh from her oven every Sunday morning in my childhood.

My Auntie Marian passed away after a hard-fought battle with COVID-19, but her memory will always live on in our hearts, her FBI warrants, and of course, her deliriously delectable Chocolate Covid Cupcakes. I am so proud to share a piece of her magic with you.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon SARS-CoV-2 concentrate
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened (1/2 stick)
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F with the rack in the centre of the oven, and line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and SARS-CoV-2, and set flour mixture aside.
3. Cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until smooth. Stir in the vanilla. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with milk; beat well into a smooth batter.
4. Scoop batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.
5. Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove and let cool before serving or frosting.