Black is Black: Intense Chocolate Cupcakes!!

With Christmas & New Year celebration parties knocking on doors, I think it is the season of baking yet again!! I mean can you show up empty handed to a party?? Wine is boring to take along, until and unless it’s a bottle of Dom Pérignon or likes. And I am sure no one is taking a bottle so expensive to a friend’s place to party!! So why not make something nice and easy. The home-made feel is lovely and rustic. You can get a homemade feel from a bakery too, but the crowd, the lines and the rapidly depleting inventory of cakes and muffins will deter you greatly. And more so, it’s expensive!! Why would u want to spend so many hundreds of rupees on something that will take less than 50 bucks to make?? And as for effort.. It’s a long weekend ahead!! Gear up your oven mitts, because a yummy little treat is about to being made!!

Now this is one of my classic dark chocolate crumbly muffins. Feel free to Ice with cream or cream cheese. It will be great to taste, this way or that. My recipe is not too sweet. If you want it sweeter, increase the amount of white sugar and decrease the amount of brown by that much. You may altogether just put in a cup of white sugar too. But then, do remember, the muffins will not come out so dark and will be a bit sweeter!!

Ingredients:

½ cup Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
½ cup Granulated Sugar
½ cup Brown Sugar
1 Egg

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

½ tsp Instant coffee Powder

¾ cup milk

1 tsp vinegar
½ cup Cocoa Powder
1 cup All Purpose Flour
¼ tsp Salt
½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Baking Soda

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 to 200 degrees Celsius and line a 12 piece cupcake tin with liners.

In a small bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, namely the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and set it aside.

In another small bowl, mix in the milk and vinegar together. This is a great substitute for traditional buttermilk in any recipe. A cake made with buttermilk comes out really fluffy and crumbly on texture, the way it should be!

Now take a large bowl and cream together butter with both sugars, add the egg and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Thoroughly mix in the coffee powder in the wet mix. This small amount of coffee will enhance the taste of chocolate and get it to a new level of chocolaty goodness. Alternatively, you may use cinnamon powder to replace coffee in a chocolate cake batter.

Add half the dry ingredients to the wet mix along with half the buttermilk substitute. Mix thoroughly! Add the other half of the remaining ingredients and combine together till you get a crumbly cupcake batter with no dry flour visible on the sides. Take care not to over beat the batter. The best way to combine dry ingredients to wet will be with a spoon or a spatula, rather than a whisk.

Using an ice cream scoop, fill your muffin tin and bake them for about 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the centre of a cupcake.

Let them cool completely before attempting any kind of frosting on them. But I love to enjoy these delicate little things warm, 15 - 20 minutes after they come out of the oven. The soft supple inside, combined by the slightly crusty outside, ah heaven in your mouth. Try it with a dollop of sour hung curd, Heaven Personified!! 

Cheers!!