Black Bottom Cupcakes

What can beat a chocolate cupcake with a cheesecake filling?! These are like little chocolate cheesecakes, but without all the work of a regular cheesecake! They're not very sweet, which can either be a good or bad thing! Bad because you can pop a million of these little things. You can make them in the full size, but I prefer mini just because they are such an easy snack to just grab.

Here are some ideas that seemed to work as I was making them:

When pouring the chocolate batter into the muffin cups, only fill to half. Use a tablespoon measure to measure out the appropriate amount of cream cheese to ensure you have enough. Be generous with it! This picture is dark, but they should look like this when you go to put them in the oven:

You'll notice the recipe calls for cocoa, I used regular Nestlea cocoa, nothing fancy. Also, the recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate, but I happened to have a bag of regular chocolate morsels already open, so I used that instead.

The recipe says it yields 30 mini cupcakes, which is quite accurate. The second time around, I put a little too much batter in the muffin cups, so they were a little bigger than I wanted them to be. So make sure, like I said, to only fill half way with the chocolate batter. Also, if doing mini cupcakes, bake only about 15 minutes depending on your oven.

Black-Bottom Cupcakes
The Great Book of Chocolate, David Lebovitz
Yield: 12 full-size or approximately 30 mini cupcakes

For the filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, regular or reduced fat, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

For the cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup unflavored vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white or cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make the filling: Beat together the cream cheese, granulated sugar, and egg until smooth. Stir in the chopped chocolate pieces. Set aside.

Make the cupcakes:
1. Adjust the rack to the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F (175°C). Butter, or use non-stick spray, a 12-cup muffin tin, or line the tin with paper muffin cups. Or use a mini cupcake tray instead.
2. In a medium bowl sift together the flour, brown sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.
3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients, stirring until just smooth. Stir any longer and you will over mix the batter and end up with less-than-tender cupcakes.
4. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Spoon a few tablespoons* of the filling into the center of each cupcake, dividing the filling evenly. This will fill the cups almost completely,** which is fine.
5. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops are slightly golden brown and the cupcakes feel springy when gently pressed. These moist treats will keep well unrefrigerated for 2 to 3 days if stored in an airtight container.

Don't worry if the cream cheese isn't centered; that's what makes each one unique!

Coffeehouse Buttermilk Scones....again

I decided to make the same scone recipe this morning as I did yesterday because they came out so good. This time I used more non-stick spray on the foil and they didn't stick at all.

Tonight, or sometime this week because there are so many scones to eat, hopefully I will make some cupcakes or those Apple Cider donuts from Food Network Magazine I talked about.

Coffeehouse Buttermilk Scones

I had a ton of buttermilk leftover from making the Apple Cider donuts last weekend, so I needed to find a recipe that used buttermilk. I never made scones before, so I decided to give this recipe from joyofbaking.com a try. They came out perfectly. I really like the flavor they have. I didn't have parchment paper home, so I used foil and I sprayed it with a very little bit of non-stick spray. They stuck ALOT, but I think using more non-stick spray would have worked well. I baked them for 15 minutes and left them in the broiler for a little more than a few seconds on each side of the pan (I rotated it once). But timing all depends on your oven/broiler.

(recipe courtesy of joyofbaking.com as adapted from Sara Foster's The Foster's Market Cookbook and Ina Garten's The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook)

Recipe:

2 cups (280 grams) all purpose flour

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (113 grams) (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces

2/3 cup (160 ml) buttermilk

Egg mixture for brushing tops of scones:

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and place rack in middle of oven. Stack two baking sheets together and line the top baking sheet with parchment paper. (This prevents the bottoms of the scones from over browning during baking.)
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Add the buttermilk to the flour mixture and stir just until the dough comes together. Do not over mix the dough.

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead dough gently four or five times and then pat, or roll, the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches (18 cm) round and about 11/2 inches (3.75 cm) thick. Cut this circle in half, then cut each half into 3 pie-shaped wedges (triangles). Place the scones on the baking sheet. Make an egg wash of one well-beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk and brush the tops of the scones with this mixture.

Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and then turn your broiler on high. Sift confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar heavily over the tops of the scones and place them under the broiler. Broil for just a few seconds, turning the pan as necessary, until the sugar has melted and turns golden brown. Make sure to watch the scones carefully as the sugar will burn very quickly. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 6 scones.