THE BEST CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES EVER: CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH VANILLA SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM

I know it doesn’t look like I’ve been searching for the best darned chocolate cupcake recipe, but I have. I have tested Corriher’s Deep Dark Chocolate Cake recipe and the Cooks Illustrated Dark Chocolate Cupcake recipe against my favourite go-to recipe by the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten.

When I tested the Corriher recipe, I found the flavour okay but it certainly didn’t beat out Garten’s recipe. I found the Garten recipe superior in ease of technique and less fussy as you didn’t have to use as many eggs (nor did you have to separate and save 4 whites from the extra yolks you needed). For the extra richness the yolks added to the Corriher recipe, I didn’t find the cupcake any more flavourful. For some strange reason, I also found little pockets of unmixed flour in the baked cupcakes, which is my ultimate pet peeve. I had sifted the dry ingredients so that shouldn’t have happened. I had followed the directions carefully, so I wasn’t happy. Initially, I thought that the technique of adding the flour into the warm hot cocoa mixture was the problem, but I’m not too sure. In any case, it wasn’t a foolproof recipe and it didn’t work out for me.

So, it was with apprehension and a bit of excitement that I picked up a copy of Cooks Illustrated from the newstand and noticed they had a recipe for a Dark Chocolate Cupcake. I chose to make it for Bebe’s birthday. Yes, I know I made her chocolate butterfly cupcakes already for her birthday party, but that was her “warm-up birthday party” for her friends. I had used Corriher’s Deep Dark Chocolate recipe for those cupcakes but didn’t bother to post the recipe because I generally don’t post recipes that don’t pass muster in my kitchen. I have made Corriher’s Whipped Cream pound cake many times however, and that is my go-to recipe for pound cake.

I made these particular cupcakes for Bebe’s actual “real” birthday, July 27. Yes, she’s a big girl now…all of 6 years old. I also liked that the CI recipe only made 12 cupcakes. I really didn’t have any need for the usual batch of 24 cupcakes that a recipe yields. To make a perfect birthday weekend, we like to spend the real birthday together as a family. Bebe specifically requested chocolate cupcakes and with her permission, I was able to forgo the usual pink colour in the buttercream.

So, we went on a Stanley Park train ride in the morning, went to Maplewood Farms in North Vancouver and visited the Lynn Canyon all in one weekend for her birthday. Bebe’s favourite activity, I think, was having a picnic on the rocks along the rushing shallow water of the creek.

As you can see, people like to stack rocks and make inukshuks along the water in Lynn Creek. The icy mountain water is so refreshing in this heat wave and the shallow pools of water are perfect repositories for your feet as you sit on a rock munching on a submarine sandwich and fresh fruit. Ahhh!

This Dark Chocolate Cupcake yields a perfect top for decorating as it doesn’t have pointy domes. The cake’s crumb is strong enough not to crumble so you can inject some fillings inside for a surprise, and most importantly, it tastes really chocolatey! I think it beats out all of the recipes I’ve tried so far (and I’ve tried many) in terms of flavour. It incorporates Dutched cocoa powder and bittersweet chocolate which you melt with the butter. I appreciate that I didn’t have to cream room temperature butter because sometimes it’s a pain to remember to bring it out of the refrigerator and if I leave it out too long, the butter can get too soft. So, for my future chocolate cupcakes, this will be my favourite recipe.

I like to decorate my cupcakes with fresh organic flowers from my garden. These are Johnny Jump-Ups. They look quite similar to the sugar violets I used to decorate. I have a variegated variety that is violet, yellow, orange and various permutations thereof. It’s gorgeous!

So, here’s my take on the perfect cupcake. It’s a combination of vanilla buttercream and chocolate cupcake. I like vanilla swiss meringue buttercream swirled atop the CI Dark Chocolate Cupcake. I don’t like sprinkles, but hey, if you have kids you have to put them there, don’t you? I went halvsies with the girls and left mine sprinkle-less because I don’t like the crunch of the sprinkles distracting me from enjoying the silky smooth buttercream.
****update:  check out a Caramel version of the Buttercream here.

***P.S.  I have been receiving a few comments from people who do not think the crumb is moist enough.   I never said the crumb would be super-moist, but it is superior to every other cupcake for CHOCOLATE FLAVOUR.   For this particular application: a chocolate cupcake with a huge buttercream swirl, this crumb is strong enough to create structure that won't buckle under a heavy buttercream swirl.  This cupcake is superior for FLAVOUR AND CAKE DECORATING PURPOSES WITH BUTTERCREAM.  Not for eating frostingless. Anything with a moist cupcake crumb would not hold up to the rigors of cake decorating...the huge swirl of buttercream frosting that I tend to employ.  If you want a moister crumb, try the Garten recipe  I mentioned before near the beginning of my post.  It uses just cocoa powder, coffee and buttermilk and no real melted chocolate is used.  That being said, this recipe isn't dry either.   Everyone's expectations for a perfect cupcake is different.  This one rocks for flavour and beauty.  It is perfect for bringing to parties.  Veggie oil based batters will always give you a moister crumb, so look for recipes incorporating oil if you like a moist cupcake.

DARK CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES
(from Cooks Illustrated, “American Classics 2009”)
(makes 12 cupcakes; do not double recipe…make two separate batches if you need more)
**Cakebrain's note:  IF YOU LIKE REALLY MOIST/WET CUPCAKES, THESE ARE NOT FOR YOU.  MOVE ALONG TO THE QUINOA CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE RECIPE.  These cupcakes are perfect for cake decorating purposes, which requires a crumb with structural integrity and that will hold up to buttercream and other decorations.   To ensure a moister cupcake with this recipe, ensure you WEIGH YOUR INGREDIENTS CAREFULLY.  Do not dip and scoop/pack your dry ingredients.

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup (1 1/2 oz) Dutch-processed cocoa
• 3/4 cup (3 3/4 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup (5 1/4 oz) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1/2 cup (4 oz) sour cream

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard-sized muffin pan (1/2 cup capacity) with baking-cup liners.
2. Combine butter, chocolate and cocoa in medium heatproof bowl. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and fully combined. Set aside to cool until just warm to touch.
3. Whisk flour, baking soda and baking powder in small bowl to combine
4. Whisk eggs in second medium bowl to combine; add sugar, vanilla and salt and whisk until fully incorporated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift about one-third of flour mixture over chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined; then sift in remaining flour mixture and whisk batter until it is homogenous and thick.
5. Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Bake until skewer inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, 18-20 minutes.
6. Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.

I highly recommend that instead of the suggested Easy Vanilla Buttercream that incorporates butter and confectioners’ sugar, that you frost the chocolate cupcakes with a Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The Swiss Meringue Buttercream is smooth, silky and not overly sweet. It pairs beautifully with the dark chocolate. The best part of this particular buttercream is that it isn’t grainy, pipes beautifully, and holds up well even in warm weather.
SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM
(from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes; makes about 5 cups)

• 5 large egg whites
• 1 cup plus 2 T sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Combine egg whites, sugar and salt in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved (the mixture should feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingertips).
2. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, whisk until stiff (but not dry) peaks form. Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy, and completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl), about 10 minutes.
3. With mixer on medium-low speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all butter has been added, whisk in vanilla. Switch to the paddle attachment, and continue beating on low speed until all air bubbles are eliminated, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl with a flexible spatula, and continue beating until the frosting is completely smooth. Keep buttercream at room temperature if using the same day, or transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat with paddle attachment on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.
4. (optional) To tint buttercream, reserve some for toning down the color, if necessary. Add gel-paste food color, a drop at a time (or use the toothpick or skewer to add food color a dab at a time) to the remaining buttercream. You can use a single shade of food color or experiment by mixing two or more. Blend after each addition with the mixer (use the paddle attachment) or a flexible spatula, until desired shade is achieved. Avoid adding too much food color too son, as the hue with intensify with continued stirring; if necessary, you can tone down the shade by mixing in some reserved untinted buttercream.

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

I’m trying my green thumb out by growing two blueberry bushes in my backyard. I chose two different varieties and only one this year has a handful of berries. I hope when they establish themselves in a few years I’ll be able to harvest enough for making blueberry muffins!

Corriher’s recipe for Blueberry Muffins again incorporates 1/2 cup of whipping cream beaten to the soft peak stage. The muffin was moist, but didn’t have much structure/strength to hold up well. It crumbles easily. She indicated you could beat the batter well (unlike the traditional muffin method) to increase gluten formation and increase structure. I did this, but the muffins were still very soft. That’s okay though. I had them in muffin liners and that helped.

These muffins stayed moist into the second day and I nuked one for 15 seconds to get that warm, freshly baked sensation again. It was very good. My mother really liked them and took a few back to her condo to eat for breakfast and snacks. These were really good, but I don’t think the whipping cream added any more flavour of complexity to this quickbread as it did to the previous recipe I made with the pound cake. I’ve had muffins just as good without the incorporation of this ingredient.

BLUEBERRIES AND CREAM MUFFINS

from S.O. Corriher’s BakeWise: the Hows and Whys of Successful Baking

(makes 12 medium (2 3/4 x 1 1/8 inch/7 x 2.8 cm) muffins)

• 2 cups (8.8 oz/249 g) spooned and leveled bleached all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons (9g) baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
• 1 1/4 cups (12.3 oz/349 g) sugar
• 1 large egg (1.75 oz/50g)
• 1/2 cup (118 ml) canola oil
• 1/3 cup (79 ml) buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon (5ml) pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) lemon zest (grated peel)
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) orange zest (grated peel)
• 1/2 cup (118 ml) heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups (7.4 oz/208 g) fresh blueberries
• nonstick cooking spray
• 1/4 cup (1.8 oz/52 g) coarse sugar or granulated sugar, for topping

1. Arrange a shelf in the lower third of the oven, place a baking stone on it, and preheat the oven to 425°F/218°C.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar for a full 30 seconds
3. In a medium mixing bowl, beat the egg with a few strokes, then beat in the oil, buttermilk, vanilla and lemon and orange zests
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Beat together with a hand mixer or by hand. Stir or beat well. This batter is almost too tender, so do not hesitate to stir vigorously.
5. In a cold bowl with cold beaters, whip the cream until soft peaks form when the beater is lifted. Beat just a little beyond this soft peak stage. Stir about one-quarter of the whipped cream in to lighten the batter. Then, fold the rest of the whipped cream into the batter. Fold the blueberries into the batter.
6. Spray two 6-cup medium (2 3/4 x 1 1/8 inch/7 x 2.8 cm) muffin pans with nonstick cooking spray.
7. Fill muffin pans almost to the top. Sprinkle the muffins with coarse sugar. Turn the oven down to 400°F/204°C and leave the oven door open for about 10 seconds. Place pans in the oven on the stone and close the oven door. Bake until well-risen and lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
8. Cool the muffins in the pans for about 5 minutes. Jar the edges of the pans on the counter to loosen the muffins, and carefully remove them to a cooling rack.

BUTTERFLY CUPCAKES

chocolate butterflies

if you can’t draw a butterfly to save your life, just locate some line drawings and trace them through the parchment. No pencils necessary!

Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I have holidayed in Seattle and come back and I’ve made many cakes that I have yet to write about. I purchased way too much cool stuff at Mrs. Cook’s and Sur La Table but all I can say is at least I’m doing my bit to help the economy.

Though travelling is way more fun now that we have a larger (and brand new) vehicle with dvd players in the headrests, I caution you not to get these things unless you’re sure your kids don’t get car-sick watching t.v. Bebe threw up on the way back up to the Canadian border. Fortunately, I had stored the potty right between the kids in the back seat because there was no room in the trunk. I heard a cough…followed by the wet belch. Immediately, my motherly instincts took over and I grabbed the potty and swung it under her mouth just in time. yuck. At least, after cleaning up and freshening up at a rest stop, Bebe slept the rest of the way home and that helped alleviate the usual painfully loud banter and petty fights between the two kids.

I realize I’ll never top Bebe’s 5th birthday cake: Ariel’s Underwater Castle. It was a multi-dayed project that resulted in a lot of oohs and ahs, but I didn’t feel that her 6th would warrant such a large cake. For one, only having 6 girls at a ceramics studio means not much cake is going to be eaten. I decided upon cupcakes instead. Bebe’s into butterflies so I thought I’d make her some chocolate ones to decorate the cupcakes. Since pink is her colour of choice, I have pink bodies surrounded by a chocolate-brown outline. This colour scheme mimics the chocolate cake and pink buttercream too.

After lining an upside down sheet pan with parchment and securing it on one side, I slid a sheet of butterfly patterns underneath the parchment. I chose to just do wings and opted to leave the antennae out. If you want anatomically correct butterflies, go ahead and pipe a pair of antennae in chocolate for each pair of wings you make. I find them way too tiny to deal with to bother. After finishing the sheet of images, I just kept sliding the template over to create more butterfly images. I set my chocolate over a heating pad set on low heat to keep it from hardening too quickly. I find it easier than a pan of hot water. The only problem I encountered: air bubbles in the chocolate as it cooled. You have to pipe pretty fast. The air bubbles ruin your ability to make thin, even lines.

When the chocolate outlines harden, you can fill a piping bag with another colour of chocolate (tint white chocolate using a gel paste or powdered food colouring or use coloured candy melts). The wings have to dry completely and after they do, you can carefully peel them off to use them. If you make a whole bunch and want to store them, I’d advise you just leave them stuck onto the parchment. I cut my chocolate butterfly-adorned parchment into small squares and stored them in layers in a plastic container.

You can use the chocolate butterfly outlines to decorate your cupcakes too. You just have to handle them very carefully as they break if you jostle them or even breathe on them. As well, you may want to wear gloves because you may melt them or leave fingerprints. I have cool hands so I just worked quickly. The ones I ruined, well, I just swore and them popped them in my mouth. It’s all good. Let it go.

Not willing to leave well enough alone, I decided to make little fondant flowers and plopped those on the cupcakes too. Check out the Castle Cake (Part 1) for instructions on how to make fondant flowers.

I found that setting the wings into the freshly piped buttercream to be the easiest way to set them into “butterfly form”. Since I didn’t make antennae I also didn’t bother with the bodies (which you could pipe in with buttercream I suppose. I figured there was enough buttercream there to hold the wings in place. Check out this post for a quick and easy recipe for buttercream.

If you place the wings just so, you could squish the buttercream a bit to look like a body anyway. I felt that after peeling the chocolate butterflies off of the parchment, the flat side of the chocolate that touched the parchment created a less bumpy appearance and so I used that for the top sides of the butterflies.

Looking at the simple and elegant chocolate butterfly outline over the filled in outline, I think the outline looks way more classy and I like them better. Plus, they’re way faster to make!

I placed the cupcakes on a cupcake display and stuck a pink Wilton card-holder pick with Bebe’s birthday greeting on the specially decorated top cupcake. I decorated the circular scalloped card with pink rhinestones and made sure everything was sparkling with pink sprinkles and dragees. With two girls, I now know how to kick up the girlie factor. The cupcakes earned some special longing gazes in the build-up time before the birthday song.

Now that I’ve done birthday cupcakes instead of the big honking cakes of yore, I’m liking it. None of the kids really eat any of the big cakes anyway…most of it usually ends up in the trash and they go off running to play after a few bites. At a kid’s birthday there has to be cake, I know, but having gone to dozens of kids’ birthday parties by now, I’ve noted how little cake is eaten by the kids. It’s all about the cake topper and the singing of the song and the blowing out of the candle. Another thing I like about cupcakes: no need for cutting! I also brought along Chinese takeout containers so the girls could take home any leftover cupcakes to their siblings or parents. Less mess, less hassle and way less work! I think I’m converting to birthday cupcakes from now on! I’ll be thinking of how to make edible birthday cupcake toppers and how to add more bling to cupcakes. I’ve decided to keep a sketch book for future cupcake designs, edible toppers and flavour combinations. What a revelation! It’s going to be fun!