Monday, March 28, 2011

Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes


Sometimes, something is so insanely good, I have a hard time writing the post to go with it. Really. If it were up to me, I would just hand out these cupcakes this week instead of writing something fun and witty. But frankly I am just too tired. These cupcakes have so many adjectives that go with them, its hard to pick just one.

 Chocolatey would be an obvious first.
Creamy.
Fudgy.
Rich.

Ok, got the basics down pat. Here's some more I thought of:

Chocolate hitting you from every angle....
An explosion of chocolate to your senses...
Chocolate, Chocolate, and more chocolate?

Ok, let's let the picture do the talking:


Brooklyn Blackout Cupakes

For The Cupcakes
One Recipe Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake 
(All good things begin with Hershey's perfectly chocolate cake. If I teach you one thing, its this.)
For The Filling
  • 1 cups white sugar
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


For the frosting

2 sticks margarine/butter
1/4 cup cocoa
4 cups powder sugar
6 tablespoons heavy cream or Rich's whip
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

Make The Cake


Prepare the cake, and pour into lined cupcake tins. Bake, and allow to cool completely.
Make the Filling
In medium saucepan, combine sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt. In a medium bowl, beat milk and egg yolks until smooth. Gradually stir into sugar mixture. Stir constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens and comes to a full boil. Boil and stir for one minute.

Remove from heat and stir in chocolate, butter and vanilla. Stir until melted. Pour into a bowl. Place plastic wrap over filling to prevent skin from forming and chill for several hours. 
Make the Frosting
Beat margarine in a standing mixture until creamy. Add 2 cups of the powder sugar, and the cream. Beat until creamy. Add remaining powder sugar,cocoa,vanilla and salt and beat until fluffy and smooth.
Assemble The Cupcakes
Once cupcakes have cooled, line them up on your work surface. Using a paring knife, cut out a cone shape from the center of the cupcake. Alternatively, you can use a 1M Wilton tip to punch out the middle, or a cupcake corer. Slice off the "skin" from the top of the cone, and place it next to the cupcake to use as a "cover." Save the remainder of the cone in a small bowl. Fill a ziploc bag with the cooled filling, and snip off the corner. Squirt about 1-2 tablespoons of filling into the hole in the cupcake, and place the cover on top. Repeat  with the remainder of the cupcakes. Pour the prepared frosting into a ziploc bag, and snip off a corner- about a half inch wide.  Pipe a swirl on top. Use reserved "cones" to crumble and sprinkle on top. 


I know these sound like a lot of work, but they are SOOO good, its totally worth it. 
I originally saw this as a cake on A Tender Crumb, then on Zoe Bakes. (She has a great clip on her post on how to frost a cake. I would definitely recomment watching it.) I substituted the fillings and frosting for my own favorite recipes, and I was really happy with the result. 

20 comments:

  1. looks yum!
    IS that filling from your choco cream pie by any chance:)?

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  2. Impressive! It sure is :) I love the recipe so I try to stick it in wherever I can :)

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  3. These are beautiful. How I wish you would have decided to give some out instead of writing about them! Although I did REALLY enjoy reading your post and looking at your pictures, I think I would have enjoyed eating one of these even more.

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  4. As a chocoholic, these look RIGHT up my alley! Bookmarking :)

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  5. These look amazing! So the cupcakes weren't hard to handle using the Hershey's recipe? I made a cake using that recipe a few weeks ago and it was REALLY moist. I made a mental note NOT to use it with cupcakes thinking it would be a nightmare. Any tricks?

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. commenting again so I get follow up email...

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  8. Thanks everyone :) Melissa- I know that Hersheys chocolate cake is not that sturdy, but for cupcakes, it was fine. I have even used it for simple sculpted cakes, and it was fine- I just had to freeze it first. Also, for cupcakes, it helps not to over fill the liners, i found that keeps them sturdier.

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  9. Oh...sounds like a chocolate overload! My kind of dessert ;)

    P.S. I would have been happy to get this passed to me today, I could use some chocolate therapy!

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  10. II actually think I'm drooling. No Joke. So yummy.

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  11. II actually think I'm drooling. No Joke. So yummy.

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  12. This chocolate overload is calling my name! Love how fluffy the frosting looks!

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  13. The Hershey's recipe is my go-to chocolate cake, so I know this is good. Because I've made it so much, I could tell there were some missing ingredients on the recipe on your site like the veg oil and boiling water. I sub brewed coffee Istrain the used coffee beans!) and buttermilk for the water and milk respectively, and I add a little bit more vanilla extract. YUM!

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  14. Also, how much chocolate did you put in the chocolate buttercream? It looks glorious!

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  15. Disregard my comment about the cake recipe. I now see what you did. Oops!

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  16. Thanks Memoria- I did leave out the cocoa! Its 1/4 cup.

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  17. These look decadent! I wish I had a big bowl full of that frosting in front of me and a spoon in my hand!!

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  18. I got a request from a friend to bake a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream for a birthday. I've tested several different recipes for each, and I gladly settled on the recipes found in this post. The chocolate cake is perfect, and the buttercream is by far the best I've ever had! I'll be making the cake tomorrow, and I can't wait to see their reactions to it. Thanks for sharing!

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