help with cup cakes please!

[nancy75]

i have been roped in to a baking competition by my darling friend (who i will deal with later ) she (in other words me) needs to bake something to take into work, and i have been nominated to help her as she really cant cook (thinks you make cheese on toast by putting cheese on bread then putting it all in the toaster - you get the idea). i am quite a good cook but dont really bake and i am determined that friend will be doing most of the work, so i need a fool proof recipe for chocolate cupcakes with choc buttercream topping - can anyone help?
thank you X

here is a good recipe if you have american measuring cups available.

actually, scrap that, it's a fantastic recipe
I used normal cocoa powder too, as I could never find her ultra fancy stuff.

oooh I love Valrhona. I've been there and done a cooking-with-chocolate course but have long since run out of everything I bought from the factory shop - Waitrose sell their chocolate sometimes, but I have never seen the cocoa...

arolf - thanks for the recipe, loots easy enough - now are americam measuring cups the same as the ones i would have or are they different to uk ones?

There was another thread about this - look HERE

I inserted a recipe further down the page which is really easy and comes out lovely - you can convert to chocolate by substituting a couple of tbsp of flour for cocoa and the same with the frosting