Slighcarp and Grimshaw

Twin Cupcakes

What better way to put off doing important poem-writing than by relating to you the lovely cupcakes I baked this weekend. When Chockylit at Cupcake Bakeshop posted about a cupcake round-up, I just couldn’t resist and immediately busted out my Marcel Desaulniers’ Death by Chocolate Cakes. If I were hard-pressed to keep only one of my cookbooks for the rest of all time, this one would be it.

Mr. Desaulniers has a recipe for a cinnamon-strawberry cake with chocolate frosting that is delicious. The first time I made it I remember being surprised by how surprised I was that strawberries, chocolate and cinnamon went so fabulously together–but why wouldn’t they? Each individually paired with another was already faboo.

This time, however, I was looking for something a little more chocolatey than yellow cake with chocolate frosting: I wanted chocolate cake, I wanted ganache and I wanted buttercream. I settled on a chocolate cupcake based on Marcel’s First Birthday Chocolate High and Fluffy-on-top Cake (all the cake names are crazy like that), berry ganache adapted from this recipe over at epicurious, and standard, American buttercream frosting with a healthy dash of cinnamon.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Berry Ganache and Cinnamon Buttercream
(makes 12 cupcakes)

chocolate cupcakes

2 1/2 oz. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
3/4 c. sugar
1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped and melted
1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. hot water
1/2 t. vanilla

Yumm-O

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin tins or use cupcake liners.
2. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. In stand mixer fitted with a paddle or with hand beaters (or by hand, but I wouldn’t recommend it): cream butter and sugar for a really long time, scraping down the sides of the bowl often. You want it to be fluffy, soft and pale yellow.
4. Add egg and egg yolk, one at a time, mixing for about thirty seconds after each addition. Mixture will look curdled but will come together later. Don’t overmix!

Ready to hit the oven

5. Add melted chocolate and mix just a little.
6. Turn mixer on low and gradually add half the sifted ingredients, mix until incorporated. Gradually add half the milk, mix until incorporated. Repeat with other half of sifted ingredients and milk.
7. With mixer still running, slowly add hot water and vanilla, mixing until thoroughly combined.
8. Fill up cupcake/muffin cups and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the center of the cupcake springs back when you press it.

berry ganache
(I could probably have made half as much as this and been fine, but then again if I’d done that I wouldn’t have all that great ganache sitting in the fridge to eat with a spoon.)

1 c. heavy cream
3/4 c. strawberry jam (I used this)
1 1/2 t. raspberry extract
1/2 lb. dark chocolate (the darker, the better, I say), roughly chopped
1 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch of salt

1. Combine heavy cream, jam and extract in a saucepan and heat on medium until the jam melts and the mixture comes to a boil.
2. Pour cream and jam mixture over chopped chocolate and cover for five minutes or until chocolate is fully melted.
3. Add the cocoa powder and salt; whisk until combined.
4. Refrigerate, mixing every five or ten minute to ensure even cooling.

Making the buttercream

cinnamon buttercream

2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 lb. (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
1 1/5 T. milk
1 1/5 t. ground cinnamon
a few drops of red food coloring (optional)

1. Beat and beat and beat the butter with the powdered sugar until it’s super-fluffy, scraping down bowl periodically.
2. Add milk, ground cinnamon and food coloring. Beat some more.

To assemble

Chocolate cupcakes
Berry Ganache
Cinnamon Buttercream
Strawberry jam
12 red-hot candy decorations.

Filling the cupcakes

1. Cut a cone out of the top of each cupcake, cutting off the bottom of the cone to create a hole to fill with goodness. (I recommend eating the bottoms of the cones you cut off before your boyfriend knows what’s happened.)
2. Fill each hole first with a dollop of the strawberry jam, and then with a good dollop of ganache. Replace the tops of the cupcakes.
3. Frost with an offset spatula or use a pastry bag to pipe the frosting onto the top of each cupcake, being careful to cover up the cut-lines from where you opened the little babies up.
4. Garnish each cupcake with a red-hot candy if you like.