Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla pudding cool whip icing

Do they look pretty? No. How do they taste? Pretty fucking good.

I wanted to bake something last Saturday. Baking is not my natural habitat, cooking is. All of these recipes I was looking at seemed complicated and I was like I'm going to go back out and get a box mix or something pre-made. Hold the phone, I came upon these cupcakes from Sugar Spun Run. One bowl? SOLD. I mostly followed the directions, then rooted through my pantry to find things I could assemble icing from and honestly these turned out fucking amazing. The cupcakes were moist and rich and the icing was not too over the top sweet. I'll never use a box mix again, and that's why they're appearing here, so I don't have to hunt down the original recipe and try to remember how I made the frosting.

Cupcakes
 2 cups sugar
1.75 cups + 2 TBS flour
3/4 cup Hershey's cocoa powder (unsweetened)
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup 2% milk
2 eggs lightly beaten (they were supposed to be room temp, mine were not quite there)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee (this deepens the flavor, I seriously suggest you use this. If you don't have it, use hot water)

Preheat oven to 350. Line two 12 each cupcake pans with liners.

Add all dry ingredients to bowl (if you have a bowl with a spout to pour, use that) and whisk together well. Add oil and milk, stirring until combined. Add eggs, stirring until combined. Stir in vanilla extract. Add the coffee and stir well - batter will separate at first and is very thin (hence the bowl with a spout to pour).

Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way full (I always overfill and fuck this up but I scrape them off and they're fine) and bake for 18-23 minutes depending on your oven. Mine is a little on the fritz and again, I overfilled, so 23 minutes. Allow to cool fully and remove from pan.

Icing
1 tub cool whip, thawed
1 package instant vanilla pudding
1 cup 2% milk
1/4 cup powdered sugar

While the cupcakes are going, combine pudding mix, powdered sugar, and milk and whisk for two minutes. Fold in Cool Whip and refrigerate until ready to use. Do not ice those cupcakes or anything baked until it's fully cooled, you got it? Unless the recipe indicates otherwise, of course, and calls for melty shit. Because that's what it'll do, it'll melt in and look disgusting. Ask me how I know this. Never mind, don't.