Ingredients 

Cupcakes

• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 cups of coco powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 8 oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup hot coffee
• 6 oz chocolate chips
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting

• 4 1/2 oz sugar
• Water to cover the sugar in the sauce pan
• 6 1/2 oz egg whites
• 20 oz unsalted butter
• 6 oz melted chocolate

Making the Cupcakes

Heat oven to 350°F. Prepare a 12 muffin pan with liners. Measure everything and get all ingredients to room temperature.

Whisk to sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in large bowl.

In a stand mixer, whisk butter and slowly add sugar to come together for a yellow, fluffy batter (about 2 – 3 minutes).

Slowly add an egg at a time to incorporate them well into the butter mixture.

In a separate bowl, pour hot coffee over the chocolate chips to get them to melt. Whisk and set aside. Mix buttermilk with vanilla extract in another bowl.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture in the stand mixer, add 1/3 of the coffee/chocolate mixture, then 1/3 of the buttermilk/vanilla mixture while Kitchenaid is running. Repeat until everything is incorporated.

Scope the batter into the cupcake pan using an ice cream scope and fill a bit more then 3/4 full.

Bake for about 20 minutes.

Making the Frosting

Cover 4 1/2 oz of sugar with water to create a simple syrup. Heat it to 220 degree. While simple syrup gets hot, whisk egg whites in a clean mixing bowl. Gradually pour hot simple syrup into egg whites to create the meringue. Whisk for about 5 minutes.

Add butter to egg whites, then the melted chocolate to the buttercream base.