Thursday, June 19, 2008

Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes

A Sweet beginning.......

Now that I have graduated to a more relaxed post-grad-student life, I thought what better way to utilize the extra time than documenting a hobby that I like the most, cooking....

My first blog is on one of the most popular dessert of all times - "cupcakes". I made a double chocolate cupcake inspired by black forest cake recipe (with a few twists of my own). Authentic black forest cake is made of chocolate cake with layers of whipped cream and cherries. Kirsch (cherry brandy) is an essential ingredient in an authentic black forest cake. I do not normally stock cherries or kirsch and so I decided to use something that I had on hand. Strawberries are now in season and on sale :-) We could not resist buying those succulent red berries and ended up buying way more than usual. We ate some, made strawberry jam and still had some waiting to be used. So I decided to substitute cherries in the black forest cake with strawberry and used the strawberry jam as a filling in the cupcake.

Here it is, my double chocolate strawberry filled cupcakes. I have used part-whole wheat flour, some honey instead of sugar and vegetable oil instead of butter for healthier cupcakes!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cocoa powder
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 vegetable oil
1 cup brewed coffee
1 tsp vanilla flavor
1 cup strawberry jam (Warmed over stove top or microwave)
8 fresh strawberry (halved)
Whipped cream (optional)

Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder in a bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl beat the eggs, oil, brown sugar and honey until well mixed. Mix in coffee and vanilla.
4. Add the flour mixture into wet mixture and stir until flour is fully incorporated.
5. Line muffin tray with parchment cups and grease well.
6. Half fill the muffin cups with batter and add a layer of warm strawberry jam. Fill the rest with batter and top it with halved fresh strawberry.
7. Bake for 20 min or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Serve with whipped cream (optional). Yummmm..................

2 comments:

Hari said...

Rajee, you too have a cooking blog :-) interesting... and you have some great pictures there too... I am planning to edit posts and add pictures as i cook the stuff in the coming days.

a.j. said...

Very interesting :) I am inspired!