The Friday Baking Project

Chocolate Cupcakes

Yield: 12 regular, 6 jumbo muffins

# of Servings:  6 to 12

Method: Modified Creaming

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:

1 ¾ cup (8 oz / 227 g) cake flour, sifted
1 ¾ tsp (.3 oz / 9 g) baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda

½ cup (4 oz / 113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup less 2 tbl (6.2 oz / 175 g) sugar

2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

2 egg whites
1 pinch salt
2 tbl (.9 oz / 26 g) sugar

Chocolate Icing:

4 oz (113 g) chocolate 55% to 64% chocolate, wafers or chopped
1 tbl ( ½ oz / 14 g) unsalted butter, room temperature

6 tbl (3 fl oz) heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch kosher or sea salt

1 ¼ cup (4.75 oz / 135 g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted, variable.

Tools and equipment needed:

• 1 regular 12-well, or 1 jumbo 6-well muffin tin
• Regular or jumbo muffin pan liners
• 1.5 fl oz (#20) ice cream scoop

Pre-recipe preparations:

• Place liners in the muffin tins.
• Preheat oven to 375 °F.

Directions:

Cupcakes:

1. Thoroughly whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.
2. In countertop mixer with paddle, or handheld mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, beat until smooth.
4. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternately with the sour cream in two parts, beginning and ending with the dry. Use a plastic spatula to scrape up from the bottom to ensure a well-blended batter. The batter will be thick.
5. In clean bowl, whip the egg whites with the salt until soft peaks. Slowly add the sugar and whip until just reaches firm meringue stage. Do not overwhip.
6. Stir ¼ of the white into the batter to lighten¹ before folding in the remaining egg whites.
7. Scoop better to evenly fill the regular or jumbo muffin tin wells. Each should be approximately â…” of the way filled.
8. Bake just until each muffin is just firm to the touch and a cake tester comes out with only a few moist crumbs, 15 to 17 minutes for regular, and 22 to 25 minutes for jumbo.
9. Remove pan from the oven and place on cooling rack for 5 minutes.
10. Gently remove the muffins from the tin and place on cooling rack.

Chocolate Icing:

1. Place chocolate and butter in a medium mixing bowl and melt over a double boiler, or in a microwave (using a glass bowl).
2. Remove from heat.
3. Whisk in heavy cream, vanilla and salt.
4. Add ½ of the confectioners’ sugar and whisk until smooth.
5. Test for sweetness and consistency.
6. In addition to sweetness, additional confectioners’ sugar thickens the icing.
7. For a loose icing that you can dip the cupcake into like a dipped ice cream cone use a lesser amount of sugar. For a thicker, spread on top of the cupcake icing add additional sugar.
8. In the photos, the icing on the jumbo cupcakes was a bit thicker and spread on. The regular cupcakes were dipped in the loose icing.
9. Let the icing set for at least 1 hour.
10. Store at room temperature.