The Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake
If you happen to have some mini versions of your #1 Valentine running around the house, you may need this recipe rather than the flourless chocolate cakes for two that I made for hubby and me to enjoy today. Believe it or not, I made these for Valentine’s Day last year—too late as usual to post in time for the big day. Bad blogger!
When I saw this recipe on a blog and the approach the blogger took to create her “ultimate” chocolate cupcake, I was all in. She and a fellow group of bakers had spent a year test trying and tweaking the recipe until the majority of them were satisfied that this was the ultimate chocolate cupcake. If you’re familiar with Cook’s Illustrated, this is their approach as well—find a good base recipe and keep trying and tweaking until you perfect it. This is why I have Word docs with anywhere from 2 or 3 recipes for, say, creamy chicken tortilla soup, to 20 or 30! I look them all over, start with the one I think has the most promise and go from there. I’ve been trying to recreate one I enjoyed at a favorite restaurant in Barrington, Illinois, when we lived in the Chicago area. But, I digress…
It is amazing what little tweaks can do to change a recipe—for instance, using a couple of egg yolks along with a couple of whole eggs. Then there’s using two different kinds of fat—both butter and oil, along with sour cream, a third fat ingredient. It may seem like magic, but it’s really just chemistry!
Rather than me wax poetic, go to the original blog post and read the comments by the bakers who participated in this fun exercise. If that doesn’t convince you to make these, nothing I say will.
Happy, happy Valentine’s Day!
One year ago: White Fudge Cake
Two years ago: Baked Shrimp Scampi
Three years ago: Beatty’s Chocolate Cake
Four years ago: Chocolate Desserts for Valentine’s Day
Five years ago: Coconut Shortbread Cookies
Six years ago: Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies
Seven years ago: Molten Chocolate Cakes with Mint Fudge Sauce
The Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake
Yield: 16 cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 oz. of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
- 1/2 cup plus 1 tbl. vegetable or canola oil
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutched will both work with this recipe)
- 1/2 cup room temperature water, measured in a liquid measuring cup (with 1 tsp. instant espresso powder added in, optional—I added the instant espresso. You won’t taste the coffee, but it will enhance the chocolate flavor. If you by chance have any leftover coffee, you can just add a 1/2 cup of your brewed coffee.)
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Directions
Preheat oven to 350o F.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, mix butter and sugar until fully combined. The end result should look like wet sand.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave at 50% power (so the chocolate doesn’t seize) or in a double boiler. Set aside to cool a bit. Once the melted chocolate is cool enough to touch, add it to the butter/sugar mixture and mix until just combined.
Mix in eggs and egg yolks one at a time until just combined.
Mix in oil, vanilla, and sour cream until just combined.
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder into a separate medium-sized bowl. Use a fork or a whisk to ensure that the ingredients are mixed well after sifting.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in three additions, mixing until just combined after each addition.
Mix in water to which you have added the instant espresso until just combined.
Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and put in the oven.
Check for doneness at 18 minutes—a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake should come out with a few tender clinging crumbs. You shouldn’t see gooey batter. If the toothpick comes out totally clean, there’s a chance they could be overbaked.
Immediately remove cupcakes from the cupcake tin and place on a cooling rack to cool to room temperature. Use your favorite frosting on these. I used a simple vanilla buttercream; but, obviously, you can never go wrong with chocolate frosting. May I recommend this A-maz-ing chocolate frosting?
Source: A recipe from the Cupcake Project