Well, finally I'm getting around to writing my first post. I should probably be trying to go to sleep.. oh well. Annyyyways.. This first one is actually a couple of weeks old. I took a little bit of a spill about a week and a half ago, so my mixing arm is currently out of commission :(
Late in February, I was on a team training ride, when I received a special request from a teammate: Pound cake cupcakes with a flourless chocolate cake center.
Challenge accepted.
In honor of our new sponsor, and an upcoming orientation/meet and greet, I decided to make them peanut butter pound cake cupcakes. Oh yea.. yumm. These count as an experiment because:
- I've never made flourless chocolate cake
- I was basing the pound cake on a recipe that I've only ever made in a bundt pan, which takes a long time to bake, so who knows how long a cupcake would take.
First, I decided to make the chocolate cake. I searched for relatively simple recipe and found this one:
Heaping 1/2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli 60% Cocoa)
1 stick of butter
3/4 C sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cocoa
[insert pretty picture of ingredients that I didn't take.]
Prep: Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a spring form pan, or line with parchment paper (or both!)
Set up ghetto double boiler with help of lovely assistant (glass bowl over top of pot of boiling water). Melt chocolate and butter in said double boiler. Once smooth and melty, remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Beating in one by one, add eggs. Whip in cocoa powder. Pour mixture into prepared pan. I used a 9.5in pan, which may have been a little big. I believe this only took about 15-20min, but cook until set in the middle.
Let it cool... and bake a pizza to pass the time, then reduce the temp down to 325F.
Once cool, start forming small, middle of cupcake size balls or squares, as shown on the right. We found that cutting small squares was a little easier than forming balls.
While assistant is in charge of flourless chocolate balls, whip up pound cake batter:
(recipe adapted from what I think was a family member's church cookbook, but I could be wrong)
1 C peanut butter (I recommend this one)
3 sticks butter
3 c sugar
6 eggs
3¼ c cake flour, sifted 3 times
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 325F. (original is 300, but this was taking forrreeevvvvveerrr, so we settled on 325F after burning the bottoms of the first batch)
Beat peanut butter, butter and sugar until creamy Add eggs one at a time, beating well.
Sift flour, salt, and baking powder 3x, then add to butter mixture a little at a time. Add vanilla.
Now the fun part.. putting them together!
So I figured the best way to do this would be to first spoon some into the bottom of the cup, then put a ball of chocolate cake in, and then add more poundcake. So that's what we did.
Now, the timing was the tricky part. As I said, we burned the bottoms of the first batch.. prooobably because I had it set to 300, then got impatient and put it up to 325 after 20min or so. The second batch took ~30min at 325, I think. The thing that makes it tough is that the tops don't really brown like you would expect them too, so it's hard to do it by eye.
Obviously now you're like, well how the hell am I supposed to make these if you can't even tell me how long to cook them for?!?! This is where I refer to the "about" page, where I say I can't guarantee recipes are reproducible. All I can say is watch them and be willing to completely *$%# up a small batch first. I usually do this anyway, just because I don't trust my oven.
The end result was really good, with lots of leftover flourless chocolate cake. In lieu of icing, I dusted the top of cupcakes with a mix of powdered sugar and cocoa. An end result picture would have been a really good idea, but of course I didn't take one. Harumph. The closest thing I have is the background (hence the blurriness) of a shot taken at the meet and greet (thank you Anthony!!) where you can see how excited people are about them:
Whew. That took longer than I thought it would. Now I'm sleepy.
Night!!!
1. Set up your double boiler
5. Next spoon the melted chocolate into the paper cups. Fill the cups about 1/3 of the way up
7. Take about 1 teaspoon of peanut butter and place it on top of the chocolate you already poured into the paper cup. I used 4 types of peanut butter: Dark Chocolate Dreams, White Chocolate Wonderful, The Bee's Knees and Crunch Time.
8. Then take the remaining chocolate and fill up the paper cups to cover the peanut butter.
