A few days ago, I made cupcakes! Not from a box, but from scratch. They were chocolate, of course, with a light cream cheese frosting and a dark chocolate glaze. It’s a shame they are all gone now.
Better Batter
So what did I make these cups of deliciousness with? I used the chocolate cake recipe found in How to Cook Everything. This recipe produced a cake that was light and airy, probably because it incorporated two different leaveners. Frist, the standard baking soda, baking powder combination was added to the dry ingredients. Additionally, the egg wights were beaten to soft peaks and gently folded in at the end. The batter produced was very light; almost like a marshmallow. Another thing I really love about it is that chocolate comes from real melted chocolate. It’s a small thing, but it makes them feel slightly more fancy.
Despite being light and moist, this recipe did give me a few problems. For one, I feel these cupcakes were lacking in chocolate (An unforgivable sin, I know). Only three ounces of melted baking chocolate gives you a light brown cupcake with a slight chocolate flavor. Perhaps next time I bake these, and there will be a next time, I might up the chocolate and add some cocoa powder to the dry ingredients. My last gripe about the recipe is that it suggests filling the cups “almost to the brim” with batter. This works, if you want it to have a muffin top. Otherwise, three fourths full is the way to go.
Frosting, or the Lack There Of
Though I had grand plans to decorate these cupcakes in high fashion with a perfectly formed dollop of frosting, two events come together to foil my plot. First, I didn’t have sufficient powdered sugar to make a full batch of frosting. Second, my piping bag has… issues.
Firstly, I was going to use old reliable buttercream frosting, but due to a lack of sugar and a desire for cream cheese, I ended up with something different. My frosting was two cups of powdered sugar, five tablespoons of butter, three tablespoons of neufchâtel cheese (affectionately sold as low fat cream cheese by Kraft), and some vanilla extract all whipped together until light and fluffy. Ok, I lied, this was neither buttercream or cream cheese frosting. The neufchâtel just added a slight tang to the frosting, which prevented it from being just sweet fluffy white stuff.
The final reason why there isn’t a mound of frosting on each one is that my piping bag was… poorly manufactured. It’s one of those “nice” plastic ones where you can screw on new tips on the front instead of lodging a mettle tip at the end of a sandwich baggy. However, the threads on the tip end can’t withstand the “high” pressure of piping frosting. After being laughed at when the tip popped off and frosting spurted out, I decided to participate in the time honored tradition of frosting cupcakes with a spatula.
In an effort to make the fancy, I quickly whipped up some chocolate glaze. It’s just dark chocolate chips, butter, and corn syrup melted on low heat. After being allowed to cool, it can be scooped into a piping bag and put on cupcakes. Easy and delicious.
Now They’re Gone
Alas, this recipe only made about 17 cupcakes, and I have hungry roommates. Maybe I’ll make the again. Who knows, maybe I’ll have enough powdered sugar to make frosting next time. Maybe next time, I won’t be singing a song from Tangled about how my “cupcakes are sublime” even if it is the truth.
Look! A Kitty! 