I am not good at being sick. I whine. A lot…..A lot. And I am a slight hypochondriac. I think I am knocking at deaths door with the slightest sneeze. It is such a travesty too. When you get home from work with your whole weekend ahead of you on Friday afternoon, and you start to feel it. All weekend I was sick, still am. I would whine about allergies, but I don’t have your typical “allergies”. I have what is called “non-allergic rhinitis“, which if you don’t want to click on the link…basically I have a sensitive nose. Anything can set off my “allergies”, perfume, a certain fruit, dust…and I never know when it will hit me. Not fun, but such is life…right?
I guess somewhere in this poor poor pitiful me state this weekend, I started craving chocolate. Right about the time that Doug left me at home to fend for myself is when it hit me. I had been bugging him to take the boat to the lake for the past month, and he finally wants to go…when I am sick. I know. So there I was, home alone with my pantry full of baking opportunities to explore. But what I really wanted was that chocolate in the form of rich and fluffy cake…better yet-cupcake.
When it was all said and done, I ended up combining about 3 different recipes and forming my own completely. Devils food cupcakes with vanilla bean cream and chocolate butter cream icing, that resembles chocolate mousse. Yes, Please. Similar to a little debbies chocolate snack cake, but tastier. So please, try it out. It would be delicious even without the cream filling if you are just wanting a quick and easy cupcake.
I’ve also decided to stop wasting your time with the step by step pictures. I know its nice to have reference to, but did y’all really use them while baking? Be honest with me, because if you liked them, I will bring them back. I just got to thinking, I would rather have a few really good pictures of the final product…and a couple of process pictures, than a lot of mediocre pictures of the process. Plus, less pictures means less incessant ramblings by me.
Thoughts? Input? Opinions?
What did y’all do this weekend?
Printable Recipe – DFC
Devils Food Cupcakes
Cupcake Ingredients
1 ounce Dark Chocolate, broken into a few pieces
½ cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
⅔ cup Hot Coffee
⅓ cup Whole Milk
1 ⅓ cups Cake Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
½ tsp Salt
10 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
1 cup Brown Sugar, firmly packed
½ cup Granulated Sugar
3 large Eggs
1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
Vanilla Cream Filling:
3 tbsp all purpose flour
½ cup whole milk
½ cup butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup of powdered sugar
1 scraped vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate Icing:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
For the Cupcakes: Heat the oven to 325F. Place cupcake liners in 2 cupcake tins (24 total cupcakes).
Put the chocolate and cocoa powder in a medium bowl. Pour the hot coffee into the bowl and stir until all of the chocolate has melted and it is combined. Add milk and stir until smooth.
In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda and salt together then set aside.
In your mixing bowl, beat butter and both sugars on medium speed for a few minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add in eggs one at a time, scrape down sides of the bowl and beat well after each egg. Add vanilla and beat until combined. Add the chocolate mixture and the flour mixture in three parts, starting and finishing off with the flour mixture. Mix until well combined, but do not over mix.
Pour cupcake batter into cupcake pans and fill cups 2/3 full. Bake at 325 for 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool 5 minutes on counter. Then carefully remove cupcakes from tin on to wire racks and allow to cool completely.
For the Cream Filling: Place a small saucepan over medium heat and cook the milk and flour until thick. Do not let it reach a boil, this will happen very quickly. Stir continuously until mixture has thickened up. Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Dump in the milk mixture, powdered sugar and vanilla bean (or extract) and beat at a high speed for 5 minutes. If mixture is too thick, add an extra 1/8 a cup of milk.
For the Icing:
Combine the butter, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla on high speed until icing is light and fluffy.
Assembly:
With a cupcake corer or paring knife, cut a small hole inside the middle of the cupcake for the filling. Fill the hole with the vanilla cream filling to the top. Top the cupcake with the chocolate icing.
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