Sweetie and I bought cherries last weekend. I think he likes cherries, but every time we buy them I eat them all! It didn't help this time that he left to go to work on Monday. It's now Thursday, and he is getting the last few cherries inside cupcakes. Black forest cupcakes.
Awww, yeah!
Here's the skinny (well, not this time)...
I almost always use a Hungry Girl recipe when doing cupcakes. Rather than eggs and oil added to a box mix, you add either canned pumpkin, applesauce, or 12oz of diet soda. It's supposed to reduce the calories, and normally it does. For these, I didn't care; I went with a full-sugar Cherry Coke, and a milk chocolate cake mix. Mmmm.
Inside each cupcake is a bit of cherry that had been tossed in cocoa powder. For the little ones, I used only a half cherry, and the big ones got three halves.
*Note, when using a HG cake recipe, I have discovered that they almost always come out much more dense than they would if you followed the box. Mini brownies are good, but not what I'm aiming for, usually. This time, I used a lighter mix (avoiding the triple chocolate chunk, fudgy cakes), and added a half teaspoon of baking soda. If I was using anything less acidic than soda, I would probably use baking powder instead to get the right chemistry in there.
The icing was the hard part. I don't like massive quantities of frosting on my cupcakes. I put a lot of effort into flavoring the cake part, and I don't want it smothered! So, I went toward a donut type, powdered sugar icing and planned to just dip the tops. Even though the recipe I started with had measurements, the reviews were mixed and I knew I was going to change it, so I didn't measure anything. Probably should have because it was amazing.
Started with a small (tea?)spoonful of cocoa, sifted with maybe 3/4 cup of powdered sugar. Added about four drops of cherry vodka with the aim of helping it dry out later. Then, about a tablespoon of chocolate syrup. Thank goodness for my stand mixer, or I would have given up before it was even mixed. It did, eventually, mix into a sweet paste. Probably could have molded things with it. I considered doing a mounded, spreadable frosting but the flavor was flat. I knew I needed to go further.
Many of the reviews for the original recipe said the powdered sugar/milk mix needed the addition of butter for flavor and sheen. Sheen is good. Flavor is necessary. Mine wasn't warm, but the friction of the mixer would get it going well enough to taste. I'm going to say, it was about a 1/8" slice off the end of a stick. Not much. Then, I added virtually equal parts of the cocoa, powdered sugar, and chocolate syrup because if I was going to dip these guys, I needed more volume to work with. The cherry flavor was non-existant, so I added about 1/4 teaspoon the second time. Mix, taste... still too thick, no cherry flavor, etc. Then it hit me; I still have the remaining bit from my bottle of soda. Over two doses, I added maybe two tablespoons of the Cherry Coke. Perfection. While testing the consistency, I noticed that it drizzled beautifully off the end of the whisk, so I drizzled instead of dipping. I am glad I did. It's pretty, and reduced the amount of icing. I wish I had left it just a smidge thicker, so the icing wouldn't melt into the top of the cupcake so much, but those nuances should be left to a person who measures. They taste good, and that's what matters.
Every little thing, all the way through, reinforces the chocolate cherry flavor. And about the time you start to think it might be too sweet, you hit the actual cherry and get that bit of sour. Yummy!
The only thing left is to get them packaged up and delivered to Sweetie at work in Eugene.
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