Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Oh. My. God. (AKA Cupcake Experiment #3)


For the next recipe, the Not-So-Ex suggested chocolate cherry.  After perusing recipes and blogs, I finally settled on a cupcake recipe that I found on the blog Velez Delights...

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes
*makes 12 cupcakes*

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup canned cherry pie filling (not canned cherries in juice)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup cherry juice (I used the liquid from Maraschino Cherries)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350F.
2) Line muffin pan with paper liners.
3) In a small bowl, mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
4) In a large bowl, whisk together sugar and oil. Mix in cherry pie filling, vanilla, and almond extract. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and cherry juice, making three additions of flour mixture and two of juice, beating until batter is smooth. Mix in chocolate chips and vinegar.
5) Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 22 to 25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting.

For the frosting, I ended up going with a chocolate frosting recipe from allrecipes.com, which I modified slightly to give it a bit of cherry...

Chocolate Cherry Frosting
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
1 Tsp vanilla
3 cups confectioners sugar
3 Tsp cherry syrup (from jar of Maraschino Cherries)
2 Tsp milk

Directions:
1) In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter.  Stir on cocoa and vanilla.  Gradually add confectioners sugar.  Beat well (it is extremely thick).  Beat in cherry syrup and milk a teaspoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved. 

The end result was so incredible that I simply can't describe it (and definitely not at midnight).  I will warn you, if you make these cupcakes, make sure you have milk.  Such large doses of chocolate should really include milk!

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