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1/31/2010

Triple Chocolate Cupcakes with a hint of Coffee

As I am sitting here writing this blog post, I am dwelling on the fact that I have failed at my goal for the new year of baking a new kind of bread each week. But I am going to very quickly justify it with cupcakes and pizza dough. Today I made cupcakes and on Tuesday I made pizza dough ... so there to my challenge! I had plans this afternoon to attend a friend's afternoon wine soiree and my mother taught me well never to go to someone's house empty handed so I thought why not try another batch of deliciously incredible Vegan cupcakes. Today's choice was based on the Double Chocolate Shot Mocha Cupcake recipe from loveandoliveoil.com.
Yesterday I looked over the recipe and I thought I picked up everything I needed but realized that I forgot an essential ingredient coconut milk, so I needed to improvise since the store that sells it is far away for a Sunday morning. Since I have tried the Chocolate Balsamic recipe on this site, I decided that I would combine the technique involved in the Chai Latte cupcakes by steeping warm soy milk through a coffee filter with fresh coffee grounds and whisking the coffee infused liquid with balsamic vinegar until it curdled. Then I mixed the curdled mixture into the dry ingredients and baked as normal. My oven didn't cooperate and cook the cupcakes evenly but it was almost as if I was expecting this since it has been cooking things pretty perfectly the past few days, I knew it was time for it to be temperamental. As they were cooking they smelled wonderful so I wasn't worried about the taste! While they were baking I prepared the icing, which once again turned out grainy. I am not sure what causes this because it only occurs when I make chocolate varieties of icing. I am convinced that it has something to do with the odd consistency of Korean powdered sugar which is a cross between granulated sugar and what I think of as powdered sugar. All in all it tasted good, but definitely not as coffee like as I thought it would. Next time I will have to add more coffee from a stronger brew to the icing. I drizzled each cupcake with chocolate syrup and garnished it with a dark chocolate square. Of course I needed to taste test before I brought them to a gathering. They were delicious but a little fragile as they fell apart easily, but luckily not in the dry category! Next time I will try these bad boys following the original recipe and hope to have a better turn out, although I am not disappointed with how they tasted. I am just imagining something even more delicious!

Double Shot Mocha Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder or 1 / 2 ground coffee
1 / 3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 / 4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 / 3 cup cocoa powder
3 / 4 teaspoon baking soda
1 / 2 teaspoon baking powder
1 / 4 teaspoon salt
Frosting:
1 / 4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups powdered sugar
1 / 2 cup butter
1 / 8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons brewed coffee (cooled)
1 / 2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a microwave safe bowl, heat coconut milk until hot (but not boiling). Stir in espresso powder. If you don't have espresso powder, put coffee grounds into a fine sieve. Pour coconut milk over grounds and allow to seep through. You will end up with a few grounds in your milk this way, but it won't affect the final product.
3. Whisk sugar, oil, and vanilla extract in to coffee mixture. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and beat until no lumps remain (or very few remain).
4. Pour into liners, filling each with a scant 1 / 4 cup of batter. Bake 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.
5. For frosting, sift together powdered sugar, cocoa. Cream butter and add to sugar mixture slowly. Add salt, and coffee. Beat 2 minutes. Add vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

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