It’s the first Tuesday of the month and do you know what that means? Treat Tuesday! This month’s special is a Double Chocolate Cupcake. There’s a fun background to these actually. So I found the recipe online many many moons ago—okay maybe like six years ago but I like to be dramatic every now and then—and the recipe called these cupcakes “Better Than Sex” Chocolate Cupcakes, which is a pretty grandiose statement, but I can assure you these cupcakes are sure damn delicious.
I’ve made these cupcakes tons of times and they’re always a huge hit with my friends. I made these a few times in undergrad at Rutgers when I would come home to visit over the weekend and bring them back to share with my floormates on Monday. From time to time I make these either full sized cupcakes or into mini cupcakes—it depends on how many people I want to share with really.
One weekend, I brought a bunch of mini cupcakes back to school with me and shared them with my floormates and we tried to come up with a cute name for them. Don’t get me wrong, “Better Than Sex” Chocolate Cupcakes is a great name, but sometimes can set people’s expectations a bit too high—you know what I mean? So my roommate Katie and I came up with the best name for these adorable little cupcakes: Chocolate Buttons.
They’re just these little teensy itty bitty desserts and calling these “buttons” just seemed so perfect. And now whenever I ask Katie what I should bake this weekend, a common response is “buttons.” And it’s never a terrible idea. These cupcakes are pretty tasty.
I first found this recipe perusing foodporndaily.com, which is a wonderful website if you love looking at pictures of food. Warning: do not visit this website while hungry, it will not fare well. I adapted this recipe from 52 Kitchen Adventures. Usually, I drizzle and decorate with white chocolate, but for this time around I opted not to because white chocolate victimized me for the last time.
I HATE white chocolate, and I’m sorry (not really) if you love it, but it’s just a pain to work with. And it’s just so overwhelmingly sweet. Overall, not a fan—0/10 do not recommend. White chocolate is very difficult to work with since it’s like…2% chocolate or something and 98% milk. Okay those numbers are made up. White chocolate is actually made from cocoa butter, sugar, and milk solids, but the amount of cocoa butter pales in comparison to its milk and dark companions (okay I apologize for that joke).
So when making these cupcakes, I encountered some technical difficulties when trying to melt the chocolate. The first time it just seized straight up and became very clumpy and uncooperative—into the trash that went. One the second attempt, the chocolate melted pretty well, but not well enough. When I poured it into my piping bag to decorate, a pesky chip hadn’t completely melted and made it very difficult and near impossible to squeeze any chocolate out. Extremely frustrated I resorted to trying a Ziploc bag, which resulted in an epic fail. The chocolate—still too hot to work with—broke my Ziploc baggie and made a huge mess. So that’s it…no white chocolate decoration for these cupcakes.
Which is fine, because the white chocolate only added a minor contrast to the deep cocoa flavor of these cupcakes (can you tell I’m trying to rationalize the white chocolate omission?). These cupcakes are dense and moist and filled in chocolate flavor. So where do I get the double chocolate from? The chocolate ganache topping. Chocolate ganache is velvety smooth and adds richness to these baked desserts.
This recipe is perfect for the chocoholics in your life.
Recipe notes:
To make these into mini cupcakes, bake at the same temperature for only 10-12 minutes.
You can use any milk for this recipe, but I recommend 2% for a rich flavor.
Double Chocolate Cupakes
Servings: 15-16 cupcakes or 30-40 mini cupcakes
Cupcakes
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cup granulate sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
¾ all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Chocolate Ganache
3.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup heavy cream
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners and set aside.
In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Add in the sugar and beat until well combined and fluffy. Add the eggs in one at a time, beating well after each addition.
In a small bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another small bowl, combine the milk and the vanilla extract.
Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix on low speed until well combined. Add half of the wet ingredients to the batter and mix until combined. Continue alternating between the dry and wet ingredients, finishing with the remaining third of the dry ingredients.
Fill the cupcake tins halfway. Be careful not to overfill. Bake in the oven for about 20-25, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The cupcakes will have flat tops, which is perfect for decorating.
Remove from the oven and let cool completely before decorating.
To make the ganache: put the chocolate chips in a small glass bowl. In a saucepan, heat the heavy cream until it begins to simmer (this will happen very quickly). Pour the heavy cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Spread a thin layer of the ganache on the cupcake tops and cool in the refrigerator.
The cupcakes can be stored in an airtight container for about a week—that is if they don’t get eaten first ;).