The Go-To Chocolate Cupcake

If you pay attention to my cupcakes, you probably notice a lot of similarities from one recipe to the next. Why reinvent the wheel with each and every cupcake? I’ve baked a lot of cupcakes in the past few years, and slowly developed what I consider to be the ‘mother’ of all cupcake recipes. It’s my go-to recipe for any chocolate-derived cupcake, and simply by adapting the recipe a wee bit, adding or substituting an ingredient here and there, and pairing it with a different frosting, I create cupcakes like the Chocolate Amaretto Cupcakes, Dark Chocolate Creme de Menthe Cupcakes, or Double Shot Mocha Cupcakes (I have a similar tactic for vanilla-based cupcakes). It’s a vegan cupcake base – with no egg (perfect for those of you who love to lick the bowl) or dairy – and I think it’s absolutely divine. The coconut milk is the kicker. While you can’t taste any distinct coconut flavor in the final cake, the subtle nuttiness adds a depth of flavor that other milks just can’t reproduce. The fact that there is no butter or egg in the cake makes it light and airy, without any of the heaviness that plagues many traditional egg-based recipes. It is, if I do say so myself, the perfect cupcake.

Yet I realized I had never published just this recipe. Only the derivatives of it. I’ve posted something similar, dubbed Rich Chocolate Cupcakes, about a year and a half ago, of which this cupcake a direct descendant. Take those cupcakes, infused with the spirit of the Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes (both recipes originally came from the bible of vegan cupcake baking, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World), and some good ol’ trial and error, and you have yourselves a hybrid cupcake that can be adapted in just about any way imaginable.

And while I admit I have focused on thinking up new and interesting flavors, you should not underestimate the power of the chocolate cupcake. All by itself, no bells or whistles. Just chocolate. Topped with buttercream in its purest form. That’s all you really need. Even better? Make them mini (as pictured). Though, you have to watch yourself or you’ll have popped three of them without even blinking.

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Go-To Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream

Makes 12 cupcakes (or 48 mini cupcakes).

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons almond meal
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

For Frosting:
1/2 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
2-3 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons soy creamer or heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper liners.

Whisk together the coconut milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract until incorporated. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, almond meal, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and pour in coconut milk mixture. Stir until just smooth (do not overmix).

Pour into liners, filling each with 3 tablespoons of batter (cups should be no more than 2/3 full). For mini cupcakes, fill each with 1 tablespoon batter. Bake 18-20 minutes (or 10-12 for minis), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

For frosting, cream butter until smooth and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add 1 cup powdered sugar and beat until combined. Mix in vanilla and cream. Continue adding sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition (depending on the temperature of your butter, you may need more or less sugar/cream to achieve the proper consistency). Continue beating until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Barley Risotto with Eggplant and Tomatoes

The trick to this recipe? Homemade chicken broth. You won’t believe the flavor it gives a seemingly simple dish like this barley risotto (which might otherwise be somewhat unremarkable). We’ve been stashing the carcasses of rotisserie chickens in the freezer, and when we’re up to three or so we break out the stock pot and get a boilin’. If you’ve never made homemade chicken stock before, it’s really quite simple. We first like to saute some veggies in a bit of olive oil (onions, carrots, celery, garlic), then deglaze it with a bit of Madeira wine. Add in the chicken remains, some bay leaf, whole peppercorns, fresh thyme, parsley stems (or any other fresh herbs/herb stems you have), and a bit of salt. Fill with water, and boil away for 2-3 hours or until your entire house smells DIVINE. Strain, and allow the broth to cool before skimming off as much fat as you can (if you refrigerate it this will be much easier). We then measure it out into 1/2, 1, and 2 cup portions and freeze it for later use. We haven’t bought chicken broth in almost a year. And if we keep buying and saving the bones from rotisserie chickens, I don’t see us doing so anytime in the near future.

With the rich flavors of homemade chicken broth reduced down and completely absorbed into the barley, you’ll forget that this meal is actually healthy for you. It’s that good. I mean, technically our homemade broth is probably not the low-fat broth called for in the recipe, but boy is it worth it.

Just make sure you plan ahead for this one. Ever made risotto before? Yeah… add 20 minutes to that. The barley really cooks at its own pace, ours took a good hour before all the liquid was absorbed, and even then it was still a wee bit al dente. Do yourself a favor and get the risotto going first, THEN tackle the roasted tomatoes and eggplant, the opposite order of what the recipe originally says to do.

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Barley Risotto with Eggplant and Tomatoes

Makes 4 servings. Recipe from Cooking Light.

Ingredients:

6 cups (1/2-inch) diced eggplant
1 pint cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
5 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion
1 cup uncooked pearl barley
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled soft goat cheese
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°.

Combine broth and 2 cups water in a medium saucepan; bring to a simmer (do not boil). Keep warm over low heat.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion to pan; saute 4 minutes or until onion begins to brown. Stir in barley and garlic; cook 1 minute. Add wine; cook 1 minute or until liquid almost evaporates, stirring constantly. Add 1 cup broth mixture to pan; bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook 5 minutes or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly. Add remaining broth mixture, 1 cup at a time, stirring constantly until each portion of broth mixture is absorbed before adding the next (about 40 minutes total). Barley will be tender but still slightly al dente.

Meanwhile, Combine eggplant, tomatoes, remaining 2 tablespoons oil, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a bowl; toss to coat. Arrange mixture in a single layer on a jelly-roll pan. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until tomatoes begin to collapse and eggplant is tender.

Gently stir eggplant mixture into barley, along remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and salt to taste. Top with cheese, basil, and nuts.

Chocolate Amaretto Cupcakes

Spiked cupcakes anyone? These cupcakes, much like my last batch of Mocha cupcakes, will give you a bit of a buzz, albeit in a slightly different way. I probably went a bit overboard on the amaretto in the frosting (2 tablespoons is a wee bit strong for only 12 cupcakes), so I’ll leave the recipe flexible and you can decide just how tipsy you’d like your cupcakes to be. Underage? Substitute 1/2 teaspoon almond extract for each tablespoon of amaretto. Granted, you won’t get the tingle of the alcohol in your frosting, but you’ll still have yourself some pretty darned good cupcakes.

These cupcakes arose from one of those, I. Must. Bake. Immediately. urges, that seem to be occurring on quite the regular basis (like, every weekend). Unfortunately, I think all my sugary concoctions are starting to take a toll on Taylor’s teeth (not that he didn’t have cavities before I met him) but I feel as though I’m making it worse. And me, who’s been cavity-free my entire life, can’t help but feel the twinge of guilt when he goes in for yet more dental work. Shudder. Maybe I need to start tossing my baked goods into the blender first and feeding him through a straw… that way the sugar never touches his teeth. Though, to be honest, a ‘blended’ cupcake kind of loses it’s appeal… ew.

Thanks to everyone for your endearing comments about the new design. I’m still tweaking it daily (oh the woes of being a designer…) like the cool new footer I added yesterday, which will show you the most popular posts of late and the most recent comments. Don’t forget to get yourself a gravatar too if you’d like to post a comment – the little picture next to your name will really let your personality shine!

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Chocolate Amaretto Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 tablespoons almond meal or finely ground almonds
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

For Frosting:
1/2 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 1/2 - 3 cups confectioners' sugar
1-2 tablespoons amaretto liqueur
2 tablespoons cream or soy creamer

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper liners.

Whisk together the coconut milk, sugar, oil, amaretto, and vanilla extract and beat till foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, almond meal, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and mix until no lumps remain (or very few remain).

Pour into liners, filling each with about 3 tablespoons of batter. Bake 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

For frosting, cream butter until smooth and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add in cocoa powder, along with 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar. Beat until combined. Beat in amaretto to taste. Continue adding sugar 1/2 cup at a time, adding cream as necessary, until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese and Peppered Honey

Figs seem to be something of a rarity, especially around here. No sign of them at our farmers’ market, meaning they probably don’t grow anywhere even remotely near here. But I was lucky enough to spot a pint of fresh figs one week at Trader Joes (where they’ve since disappeared) and made darn sure they didn’t go to waste.

This recipe is simple. Almost too simple, you might think. It doesn’t require any heat whatsoever, and very little effort beyond slicing the figs and mixing a bit of honey with some freshly cracked pepper. But boy does it taste good. You know I’m a sucker for anything with goat cheese in it, but a juicy fig, drizzled with a sweet and surprising peppered honey, well, we could have easily made an entire meal (or even dessert) out of just this. In Taylor’s words, all you need is a bit of prosciutto and you’d be set (me, I was plenty happy without the prosciutto, but, you know Taylor, he thinks anything is better when it’s wrapped/stuffed/sauteed with a bit of pork).

Figs intrigue me, especially after a recipe like this. Growing up they weren’t something I ate, well, ever, and my only association with them was Fig Newton cookies (which, in my opinion, shouldn’t even be allowed to be called a cookie). But a fresh fig is nothing like the off-colored goo inside those concoctions. I wish they had a longer season, or at least longer than a week or two here in Tennessee, so I could further explore their culinary possibilities.

(and psst!! For those of you that read this blog via email or rss reader, you may want to click on through to the site. I’ve just given it a pretty substantial facelift – you should take a gander for yourself, and let me know what you think!)

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Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese and Peppered Honey

Makes 4 appetizer servings. Recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
12 fresh figs
1/4 cup soft fresh goat cheese

Directions:

Combine honey and pepper in small pitcher; stir to blend. Starting at stem end, cut each fig into quarters, stopping 1/2 inch from bottom to leave base intact. Gently press figs open. Spoon 1 teaspoon cheese into center of each. Arrange figs on platter; drizzle with peppered honey.