Just a little place for me to post to my hearts content. My crafts and creations, photos and thoughts.

Feb 27, 2012

Devil's Food Cupcakes

 I love trying new from-scratch cake recipes, always hoping to find the ultimate tastes-like-its-from-a-box mix winner. Sounds backwards and counter intuitive, but its the truth. The box mixes, to me, always taste super moist and fluffy. However a problem that arises is my disorganization, or lack of proper documentation, after trying all those recipes. I have many recipes I've written or printed or scribbled down on scraps of paper, but at this point just can't remember how they've all turned out, so i find myself just searching for a new one. I am hoping that documenting these trials on this blog, something that cannot get lost, or ruined or forgotten, will help me with my search.



 Recently I made these Devil's Food cupcakes. They came out pretty good I'd say. I topped them with a chocolate ganache glaze.

                ~~    Here is the Recipe:     ~~
2         Cups   Flour
2         Cups   Sugar
3/4      Cup    cocoa powder (or 4 oz.of unswtnd. chocolate and a reduction of 4 Tb. of fat from recipe)
2 tsp.     baking soda
1 tsp.     salt
1 tsp.     baking powder

1   Cup Veg. oil
1  Cup hot coffee
1  Cup milk

2 Lg eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla

            ~~Here is what I did:       ~~
((*First off I had to substitute a few things, I was out of cocoa powder so looked up how to use baking chocolate bars instead, I found that I could use 4 ounces of unsweetened chocolate and reduce any oil or fat by 4 Tablespoons, so that is what I did. I also used instant espresso powder in hot water for the coffee and as usual I try to reduce a little sugar whenever I can and so used 1 3/4 cups instead of 2. **))

  Preheat oven to 325 degrees,  grease and flour (2) 9'' pans, (1) 9''x13'', or make cupcakes!
Sift the dry ingredients. In another bowl mix wet ingredients.
 (* I heated the milk, water and espresso powder until a little bubbly then I poured it over the chopped 4 oz. of chocolate let it sit a moment then mixed it all up, then added it to the remaining wet ingredients and proceeded with the rest of the recipe directions*)
Combine the dry and the wet and pour into pan(s) or cupcake tins.  Bake 45 minutes, but for cupcakes Id start checking them around 25-30 minutes for done-ness.

I topped them with a simple chocolate glaze or ganache, I'm a little unsure of the measurements or recipe I used but will add one I have in my notebook that I more than likely used.
1/2 Cup heavy cream
8 ounces chopped chocolate
1 Tablespoon butter
1 tsp. instant espresso powder.

heat cream until just bubbling. pour over chopped chocolate and espresso. Let sit 2 minutes. whisk in butter and continue until smooth.

No comments: