Chocolate Butter Cupcakes

Cupcakes! This week’s heavenly cake bakers choice leaves behind the spun sugar, the fancy chocolate glazes, the water baths, the chiffons, and goes back to good old-fashioned cupcakes. Then again, I’m not really sure there’s anything old-fashioned about cupcakes, but they sure are good, and easy to make. Especially if you have some sort of leftover frosting in the freezer.

These cupcakes are pretty similar to the recipe in the Cake Bible, but with a slight difference in when the liquid ingredients go in. For more details on the differences, visit Jennifer’s blog.

You start by mixing together the dry ingredients.

Then add the cocoa (first steeped in boiling water and cooled), and the butter.

Next, you’ll add the eggs, more water, and vanilla, in two batches.

Mix that up, then divide into your cupcake pans. I won’t even try to pass these off as “muffin tins”.

For those of you who may question the whole idea of the ‘mise en place’, because you think it might generate too many dishes, let me assure you, it’s really not that bad.

I had one cup with cover for steeping the cocoa, one bowl for the eggs, water and vanilla, and one for the butter to come to room temperature in (I measure it first, then let the appropriate amount come to room temperature). Then there was a couple of spatulas and a fork.

I had a bit of leftover raspberry cloud cream (recipe is in the Cake Bible) in the freezer. I think this was from my cousin’s wedding cake last August. After thawing and rebeating, it still tasted great to me, so I figured it was time to use it up. That’s what I love about cupcakes — I can make a batch and frost with 3 different batches of leftover frosting, without anyone thinking I’m making strange flavour combinations. I used up a bit of peanut butter frosting too, though it was still a bit firm from the fridge, so it looks more like a blop of fudge than frosting, so I didn’t include it in the picture.

Taste impressions: The raspberry cloud cream is delicious, and it’s a nice contrast to the chocolate. The cupcake is rich and chocolate-y, with a nice fine crumb, but I think I may have overbaked slightly (probably due to me stretching the recipe into 24 cupcakes, instead of 16). I’ve made this recipe before and it came out much more moist last time.