Chocolate Raspberry Cuppycakes

I made these for a friend's birthday. Only I've been a little behind on things, and so I made her the "birthday" cupcakes about 5 months late. She did say they were worth the wait, though. ;-)





Chocolate Raspberry Cuppycakes
(Borrowed from Sweetest Kitchen - makes 12 cupcakes)

INGREDIENTS
* 125g soft unsalted butter
* 100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
* 300g raspberry jam (I used seedless)
* 150g caster sugar
* pinch of salt
* 2 large eggs, beaten
* 150g self-rising flour


INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat your oven to 350F. (Note: I usually preheat my oven to 25 degrees lower than what recipes say, because it runs about 10 degrees hot and also I use nonstick bakeware. So I actually baked these at 325.)

Melt butter in a double boiler. When nearly completely melted, stir in the chocolate. Stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and chocolate are smooth and melted. Now add the raspberry jam, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon and when all is pretty well amalgamated stir in the flour.

Put batter in lined cupcake pan. Do not overfill! I estimate you want to put no more than 1.5 tablespoons of batter in each cupcake liner. Bake for about 25 minutes (it was 26-28 for me). Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing and placing on a rack.

Cool cupcakes completely. Fill cupcakes with raspberry whipped cream using the cone method, then frost with the chocolate ganache icing (recipes are below).


Raspberry Whipped Cream Filling

INGREDIENTS
* 1/2 cup ultra-pasteurized heavy whipping cream
* 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1/2 tablespoon granulated white sugar
* 1/4 cup lightly sweetened raspberry puree (recipe below)

To make the raspberry puree:

Thaw 24 oz (680 grams) of frozen unsweetened raspberries in a large fine-meshed strainer suspended over a large bowl. (This may take a few hours.) Once the berries have completely thawed, force the juice from the berries by gently pressing them with the back of a large spoon. All that should remain in the strainer is the raspberry seeds.

Throw away the raspberry seeds and and stir in 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar. Sweeten more if necessary, to taste. (For extra flavor you can also add a little raspberry liqueur.)

Store covered in the refrigerator up to a week, or freeze up to a year. Makes approximately 1 3/4 cups (420 ml).

To make the raspberry whipped cream filling:

In a large mixing bowl place the whipping cream, vanilla extract, and sugar and stir to combine. Cover and chill the bowl and beaters in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. When chilled, beat only until soft peaks form. Add the sweetened raspberry puree a little at a time, and beat just until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised. Taste and fold in more sugar or puree, if required.


Chocolate Ganache Icing

INGREDIENTS
* 100g dark chocolate
* 100ml double cream
* 12 fresh raspberries, optional


INSTRUCTIONS

Break the chocolate for the icing into little pieces and add them to the cream in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, remove from the heat and then whisk – by hand or electrically – until thick and smooth. Ice the cupcakes, smoothing the tops with the back of a spoon, and stand a raspberry in the center of each.



Here's a bonus picture of a whole dozen cuppycakes.

Dark Chocolate Cuppycakes with Vanilla Buttercream

I had people coming over for a scrapbooking group on Saturday, so I decided to try this recipe. I frosted them with vanilla buttercream that I made based on the recipe here.






These came out pretty good... as the Cast Sugar blog mentions, they are sort of like brownies in cupcake form.

Cupcake recipe thoughts:
- I used 85% cacao Lindt chocolate because I had no time to go anywhere besides my local grocery, but will probably try the Trader Joe's Valrhona chocolate recommended in the recipe if I make these again. They came out really good, so I probably will.
- The chocolate mixture in this recipe requires a little bit of fussing, so don't try this one if you have never ever baked anything before. Pick a simpler one first. :)
- I used cupcake pans with silicone baking cups and did not use any parchment paper as the recipe suggested. My cuppycakes seemed to come out fine.
- I might want to tweak this recipe a little bit next time to see if I can get the cupcakes a little more moist... maybe 2 sticks of butter instead of one and a half?

Frosting recipe thoughts:
- The frosting recipe calls for 2 tsp of vanilla extract, but I ended up using 2 and a quarter tsp because it was too sweet and not vanilla-y enough for my taste. I would have happily gone up to 2.5 tsp or more, but I didn't want to keep mixing the stuff and make it all funky. I want to use ground vanilla beans in the frosting next time.
- I used about 6 cups of confectioner's sugar in the frosting. The recipe calls for 6-8. I am going for 8 next time in order to make it thicker, but I think it needs REAL vanilla in order to do this and not be overly sweet, at least on these rich, chocolatey cuppycakes.

General baking thoughts:
- At first, I felt like the vanilla buttercream was too sweet for these cupcakes, but in the end it kinda grew on me.
- I think these cuppycakes would also be good with the really yummy cocoa cream cheese frosting that I've made in the past. May have to try that sometime.
- I have switched washing methods for my silicone baking cups due to feedback from that she could taste soap residue on my pink lemonade cuppycakes. I thought maybe she was just REALLY sensitive to soap taste (because I ate another one of the cupcakes after that and failed to detect the soap taste). Then later, I got a cupcake that tasted soapy to me as well. Apparently, a couple of the baking cups did not get adequately de-soaped. Ew! I did not notice any soapiness with these chocolate ones after switching washing methods... but I think you might only really notice with something like the pink lemonade ones that have a more delicate flavor. Hopefully the issue is resolved now. *blush*

For posterity, in case the blogs I linked to ever happen to go away, here are the recipes...

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:
3 to 4 oz. Valrhona 85% cacao (or any bittersweet chocolate)

12 Tbsp. (1 1/2 sticks) butter

1 1/8 c. sugar

4 eggs

5/8 c. flour

1/8 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened

3/4 tsp. baking powder

Pinch salt

Prepare baking sheets by lining with parchment paper and laying out cupcake cups. Preheat oven to 350 F.

Chop chocolate and transfer into the bowl of a standing mixer. Add butter to the chocolate and place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir until chocolate melts and butter is combined.
Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Let mixture cool for 10 minutes. Beat in an electric mixer for 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing for 10 seconds between each.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt into the mixture, return to the electric mixer, and mix until blended.

Scoop batter into cupcake cups and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, room temperature
6-8 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup milk

1. Sift powdered sugar into a bowl or onto parchment
2. Beat butter at medium-high speed until creamy
3. Add half of the sugar, the vanilla and the milk. Beat until combined
4. Gradually add remaining sugar until you get to the consistency and sweetness you like.

EDITED TO ADD:

We had a few extra cupcakes with no frosting because we ran out. So I tried another recipe for vanilla buttercream this evening on the remaining cuppycakes.


Vanilla Buttercream Frosting #2:

3 c. + 3 Tbsp. confectioner’s sugar
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/8 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. milk
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

This is just a variation on the buttercream recipe I liked so much with the pink lemonade cupcakes. It turned out much better than the first vanilla buttercream, in my opinion. I want to try using heavy whipping cream next time instead of milk. :)