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Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper or silicone liners. Spray the insides of the cups and the top of the baking pan with nonstick baking spray. Set aside.
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Add the sugar, flour, salt and baking powder to a food processor. Pulse until the dry ingredients are blended thoroughly.
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Add the cream and butter and pulse to blend, 8-10 times, or a bit more, until the dry ingredients are evenly moistened.
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Add the eggs, vanilla and creme de menthe extract. Pulse 5 or 6 times. Then pause to scrape the sides of processor. Pulse 5 or 6 times more. You want the batter to be blended and smooth, but do not over mix.
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Add the chocolate chips by hand and use a silicone spatula to mix them -- side to side and top to bottom (it is a little tricky because you are doing it in a processor bowl, but do not over think it and do not over mix).
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Divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups. I had a little extra and added it to 2 mini loaf pans (you might see in the pictures that I did not grease them well enough though and the loaves stuck but the cupcakes were fine).
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Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a center cupcake comes out clean or with a little melted chocolate.
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Let the cupcakes cool for 5 minutes in the pan, before lifting them and removing them to a cooling rack.
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Let cool completely before frosting and sprinkling mini chocolate chips over the frosting.
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These will keep for a day just fine in a cool kitchen (it was a chilly fall day and my kitchen was about 60 F). But if butter would get melty in your kitchen, you definitely need to chill the frosted cupcakes.