Dark-Chocolate Cupcakes

I found this cupcake recipe in the Wall Street Journal just after Hostess closed down. I'm not a fan of Twinkies, but those cupcakes are another story. My daughter likes them too, and requested them for her birthday--without the filling.

Below is the recipe as I made it. The original is linked above, if you want to know how to make the white-chocolate mousse filling. We thought these were rich enough all on their own.

The original recipe called for preparing "a 12-cup muffin pan." That made me think that the recipe would yield 12 cupcakes. The amounts of ingredients seemed awfully high for only a dozen cupcakes, so I wasn't too surprised when I had to pull out extra muffins pans--not once, but twice. I got 3 dozen cupcakes from this recipe, and since I'd accidentally overfilled some of the muffin cups, the yield would probably be closer to 3 1/2 dozen.

DARK CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES
(makes about 3 dozen cupcakes)

CAKE:
3 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 TBL baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cups cocoa powder
4 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups strong brewed coffee, warm
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 TBL butter, melted

GLAZE:
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp butter

Preheat oven to 325. Whisk together sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt & cocoa into a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together eggs & egg yolks, buttermilk, coffee and vanilla. Slowly add egg mixture to dry ingredients, whisking together. Add butter and stir until just combined.

Prepare muffin tins with liners or grease muffin cups. Fill each cup halfway with batter. Do not fill more than halfway or things will get messy. Bake until cooked through, 18 to 20 minutes. (Mine took 22.)

Allow to cool to room temperature before glazing.

In a small pot, bring cream to a simmer. Place chocolate, salt and butter in a bowl. Pour in simmering cream and allow to sit 1 minute. Whisk until smooth. (I had to microwave the mixture for 20 seconds to melt the last of the chocolate bits.)

Dip tops of cupcakes in glaze and place on tray. Top as desired.

Birthday Bundt Cake: Chocolate with Caramel Glaze

I'm not much of a cake person. I'd much rather have cookies or pie. But when there's a birthday, there should be cake.

Each Wednesday, we host practice for our church's Folk Group.  It's more comfortable than practicing in church, and people can bring their kids to hang out with my kids.  When there's a birthday, we celebrate with a cake.

I've been on a bundt-cake kick lately, as these are easy to make and serve.  And I've discovered that doctoring up a box cake mix with some pudding and using a glaze rather than frosting makes a cake that even I feel like eating!

Here's tonight's edition of the Birthday Bundt Cake:  Chocolate with Caramel Glaze

CHOCOLATE BUNDT CAKE
1 box devil's food cake mix
1 small box INSTANT chocolate pudding mix
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
dash of cinnamon

Mix and bake as directed on box instructions (for me, it's 50 minutes at 350.)

CARAMEL GLAZE
(I found this one over at Bless Us O Lord)

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 ounce milk
dash of salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup confectioners sugar

Melt butter in small saucepan. Add brown sugar and milk. Cook and stir one minute until mixture is smooth*.
Remove from heat. Stir in remaining ingredients and beat with electric mixer until well blended. Drizzle over cake.

This was only half the original recipe but it still made a very generous amount of glaze!

*DO NOT melt the butter in the microwave, stir everything else in and expect it to get smooth. Ask me how I know this. It still tasted delicious, but was a little on the grainy side.

Pokemon Cake

For Little Brother's birthday I made a Pokeball cake and cupcakes. These were really easy and required a minimum of decorating skill. That's good, because I was not feeling super-well, so I wasn't up to a big challenge.

You need:
3 cans frosting (one chocolate, 2 white)
2 cake mixes, prepared as directed
1 bag Valentine M&Ms (you need red and white M&Ms. Well, actually only white ones, unless you are using red to put numbers on some of the cakes like I did. You get to eat all the pink ones.) If you don't have white M&Ms, get some little gumdrops and use the white ones. Or white chocolate chips, upside-down, would work too.
Icing bag and frosting tip (I used a #3 tip, I think.)
1/2 bottle red food coloring (not those wimpy little vials that come in packs of 4. A BOTTLE.)

I baked 24 cupcakes, 1 9X13 and 1 "dome" in a small Pyrex dish. The batter for that came out of the 9X13 batch. I'm not the biggest fan of baking spray (usually I use solid shortening and flour for cakes) but I had a free can of Bakers Joy and this stuff was fabulous in the Pyrex.

The 9X13 was frosted in chocolate (Middle Sister did that part) and then I put the "dome" on top of that.

Then I mixed up my red frosting. Note: if tinting an entire can of frosting, use a mixing bowl. Don't try to mix it in the can. My table is still a little pink in spots. I did the whole can because there will be another party soon and this way I wouldn't have to mix colors again. I used half a bottle of red coloring for the whole can. The color WILL get more intense over time; when I finished mixing it, it still looked a bit pinkish. So does my thumb, come to think of it.

Put a little of the chocolate frosting into the icing bag for trimming out the Pokeballs.

ALMOST half of each cupcake, and half the dome, should be red. I left a little semicircle uncovered and then did that part in white. Next time I will do the white part first...live and learn.

Trim it with the chocolate and then top with the white M&M.

Fancy birthday cakes on the cheap. My 7-year-old was thrilled.

Aircraft Carrier Birthday Cake

This is an upside-down post. It shows the finished cake, and then in reverse, the steps I took to get there. Not including baking and planning (the most important part) I probably spent under 2 hours doing the actual decorating.

The airplanes are the only non-edible part of the cake. Happy Birthday, Little Brother!


Here's the partially-iced cake.


This is the fully-iced cake without airplanes.


Here's how I started out. 2 cakes size 9X13 and 3 mini loaf cakes.