Cupcake Baking 101: The Best Chocolate Cupcake Recipe!

Hey, guys! What are your weekend plans? Are you ready to start the weekend? Yeah!! Me, too!

It’s time for Bake Happy's cupcake tutorials! For those who have missed the previous posts, I have posted the links below just for you.

Okay, I cannot stop raving about my Ma’s Chocolate Cake recipe. You won’t stop too, once you’ve got to taste it! Pinky swear. I decided to share it to the world because I must admit it would be a shame to tuck it somewhere left to be forgotten. A recipe such as this needs to be shared. 

For chocolate cupcakes, I use this recipe. And since I showed you how it’s done step by step here, I thought of sharing the raves Bake Happy has gotten for this recipe! Thanks soo much guys! You make my heart go pitter patter everytime I read your raves!

From Dianne (Facebook):

Tried your moist chocolate cake recipe today. I sooooo love it...super moist.=)  I made cupcakes from your moist chocolate cake recipe by the way.=) Good thing its delish even without frosting...my husband loves it too. Thank you very much for sharing your recipes and answering my queries.

Prepare cupcake pan, line with cupcake liners.

Naina (Facebook)

Aikko !!! The test run was a huuuuuuggggggggeee success !!! Thank you thank you thank you so much! I will post pics of the final cupcakes.... You should be a proud teacher right now coz I feel like a proud student .. thank you so so so so much! I'm drunk on cupcakes ..... hiiiiiiiccckkkk

Fill liners with batter, two thirds full.

Bernadette (Twitter)

@i_am_bakehappy  i'm trying out your Moist Chocolate Cake! Made the frosting today, cake tom!

@i_am_bakehappy your chocolate recipe is perfect! I will never buy a chocolate cake again! I will just bake it! :) thanks so much! :)

Meg of Clutzy Cooking 

Okay, soooooooo, this looks.... I mean.... wow. WOOOOOOOOW. That looks amazing! i am from Chicago and there is the infamous Portillos Chocolate Cake which is also made with mayonnaise annnnd, I now NEED to make this to see/compare. Thank you so so much for sharing! Love this, as per usual. Hope you're well!!

Enjoy the cupcakes!

Marissa of Frosting on My Cake

Hi Aikko! Last Sunday's party was a success. Everyone was raving about the cupcakes I made. Thanks so much for the chocolate cake recipe, it is indeed the best!

Happy Cupcaking!

Aikko

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Cupcake Baking Tutorials

Cupcake Baking 101: Cupcake Pans

Cupcake Baking 101: Cupcake Liners
Cupcake Baking 101: How to Evenly Distribute the Batter into Cupcake Cups
Cupcake Baking 101: The Cupcake Scoop Test
Cupcake Baking 101: 10 Cupcake Baking Essentials
Cupcake Baking 101: Vanilla Cupcakes with a Secret Ingredient

Of Typhoons, Butterflies and a Frosting Challenged Baker

Manila got hit by a typhoon

There was no electricity for two days

I had to climb several flights of stairs in darkness

Highlights of my week... but I am not complaining. Despite the inconveniences I am thankful my family's complete, safe and happy.

Typhoons and butterflies aren't exactly related... can we play the six degrees of separation here? Probably not.

Anyway, Tita Vicky was in town for a visit so I decided to make cupcakes for her.

Chocolate is a flavor that seems to be liked by many so those are the ones I've baked. But to give it a twist, I made it Devil's Food style. To give the icing a little bite, I made cream cheese frosting.

You know when sometimes no matter how you style your hair, it won't just give you a break? I did not have a bad hair day last week but I did have a bad frosting day.... There were too many bubbles, the icing was too soft it literally wilts away as soon as I piped it in the cupcake, the colors just won't blend with the frosting... but I should stop complaining... it tasted great anyway... or so I'm told.

The toppers I made were butterflies... I need practice making the faces... my butterflies' faces look like they come from another planet.

Happy Cupcaking!
Aikko

Freedom Cupcakes

I'm experimenting with isomalt and came up with a sugar free version of my mom's chocolate cake recipe.

What I love about this batch is that it has risen so beautifully and that cake is so moist making a frosting to go with it is simply pointless.

Best of all, although it's sugar free, it's simply a guilty pleasure for me.

Pinoy Cupcake: Tsokolate Ah Cupcakes with Fried Suman and Panucha Frosting

For those who remember Noli me Tangere well, you can probably tell the difference between tsokolate eh and tsokolate ah.

Tsokolate ah is the chocolate drink the Spanish priest (was it Padre Salvi?) would request to be served if his guests are VIPs while tsokolate eh is its bland counterpart, fit for unwanted visitors.

No, it's not June 19 or December 31 but I suddenly just want to do something in honor of Pepe. Uh oh, the geek in me is coming out again! Yeah, yeah, I can just hear Kristine, Bo, Nina, and Shetan laughing! Hahaha :P How could a chocolate cupcake be anymore richer worthy to be called Tsokolate ah? For this, I decided to swap local ingredients to my usual chocolate cake recipe. Instead of using cocoa powder, I used cacao tablea I bought from a recent trip to Pangasinan and instead of the usual milk, I used gatas ng kalabaw from the Salcedo Market.







I made 24 cupcakes but unfortunately, 12 of them overflowed because I placed way too much batter in a liner (see below). Good thing the other 12 baked perfectly fine. Nevertheless, the 12 that overflowed was still yummy the gang finished it in no time.

As for the frosting, I tried something new. Went to the sugar section of the grocery store and saw some lonely looking packs of Panucha at the lower level of the shelves. Hmmm... choclate and panucha? An unlikely combination but I think it was worth the try. Unbelievably, it gave a caramel-like taste to the frosting. It's so yummy! Cupcakes wouldn't be complete without a cute topper. I don't know if suman can be classified as cute but it sure works for this cupcake.



Panucha Frosting

1 stick butter

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 bao of Panucha

2 tbsp milk for the panucha

2 tbsp milk for the frosting



1. Chop the panucha to small pieces. In a double broiler, melt the panucha till smooth then add water to prevent it from hardening again.

2. Place melted panucha in an ice bath for five minutes. After which, add 1/8 c milk. Stir vigorously to blend both milk and panucha.

3. Cream butter for 1 minute and add the powdered sugar slowly.

4. Add the panucha mixture. Make sure that it is completely cooled before adding to the butter mixture. Otherwise, the butter will melt and you'll no longer be able to pipe the frosting

5. Mix well to makesure all ingredients are well blended

Happy Cupcaking,

Aikko





ps: This is part of my experimental Pinoy Cupcake series I started some time ago. Hope there's more to come. Cheers! I mean... tagay!

Blair and Nate's Flourless Chocolate Cake

Last week, I made an almost flourless cake. It was so yummy but the texture was not the same as the flourless chocolate cake I tasted at The Market.


So this week, I tried another recipe. I found one at howdini.com. Chef Ceci Carmichael seems to have the recipe I'm looking for. And it only has five ingredients, cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate bars, sugar, egg and butter. How simple is that?!


I have to say, this version of the fourless chocolate cake is for "adults only". Nothing naughty here guys! Its just that it isn't as sweet as I expected it to be. Next time I try this recipe, I'll probably replace unsweetened cocoa powder with a sweetened one and the bittersweet chocolate bar with milk chocolate. Let's see how that one will turn out. But it would probably be awhile if I ever tested this recipe again. I'm trying to revive my Pinoy cupcakes series. Hopefully starting next week. If I get all the needed ingredients. Fingers crossed.




Here's Chef's Ceci's version. I just modified it to fit my little cupcake liners.
(1) Melt 2 sticks (1 cup) butter and 8 ounces of bittersweet chocolate in saucepan over low heat.
(2) While butter and chocolate are melting, mix dry ingredients together - 1 1/2 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 cup granulated sugar.
(3) Add eggs to dry ingredients and wisk together. (You can add the eggs all at once.)When the butter/chocolate mix has cooled enough to ensure that its heat won't scramble the eggs in you dry ingredients/egg mix, temper the butter/chocolate mix into the dry ingredients/egg mix and wisk the two together until they are completely blended.
(4) Cut a piece of wax or parchment paper to fit the size of your springform baking pan, and lightly butter it
(5) Place it into the baking pan, buttered side up, and pour the cake mix into the pan.Place into a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Don’t overbake it!Remove from oven, allow to cool and remove from the baking pan. Place on a serving plate.



From the looks of it, the cupcake can stand on its own with just a dust of powdered sugar. It's just that I don't know when to stop!!! Here I was thinking I have to whip a cup of heavy cream to frost the cupcakes. I shouldn't have done it since it backfired. Whipped cream curdled just as I was about to stop and pipe it. See? It completely sucks!!! Good thing I have one good cupcake left to frost and take a picture of.


Why Blair and Nate? In preparation for Gossip Girl's Season Three coming this September of course! You know you love me, xoxo...

Happy cupcaking!

Aikko

Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie Cupcakes

A few weeks ago, Cielo and I went to The Market to grab some dinner when I noticed they were now selling mouthwatering cakes and pastries. Their flourless chocolate cake caught my attention and decided to try one. I took my first bite and already I was in seventh heaven. It was that delicious! The cake just melts in your mouth.

So this weekend, I decided to make my own version. I found a recipe for an almost flourless chocolate cake from Clotilde's Chocolate and Zucchini. The original name of the cake is Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie. Geez, even I can't pronounce that but it sure sounds classy to me. Anyway, by the look of the ingredients, it seems it's fairly easy to make plus baking time's short too. Plus factors for me since I am fairly new at this.

Now for the frosting... I had a feeling the cupcake will have a very sweet and intense flavor so I decided to top it with just whipped cream to balance the flavor out. Problem is, with a country as hot as ours, topping the cupcakes with whipped cream may be a disaster since it will melt quite easily. So, I tried looking for a no melt whipped cream recipe and found this. Problem solved.




Hmmm.... what do I put at the top, cherries, of course!

Hope Clotilde wouldn't mind me reposting the recipe...

__________________

"Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie"

translation: Melt-in-your-mouth Chocolate Cake

- 200g (2 sticks minus 1 Tbsp) butter

- 200g (7 oz) dark chocolate

- 200g (1 C) sugar

- 4 eggs

- a rounded tablespoon of flour

Note: like all dark chocolate cakes, this cake is best made a day ahead (or at least in the morning if you serve it for dinner).

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C (350°F). Place cupcake liners in a 12 piece cupake pan. Melt together the butter with the chocolate (in a double-boiler or in the microwave slowly and for just a few seconds at a time, blending with a spoon between each pass). Transfer into a medium mixing-bowl. Add in the sugar, stir with a wooden spoon and let cool a little. Add in the eggs one by one, mixing well after each addition. Finally, add in the flour and mix well.

Fill in the cupcake liners upto three fourths full and bake for 25 minutes. Turn the oven off but leave the cupcakes inside for another ten minutes, then put the pan on a cooling rack on the counter to cool completely. Cover with plastic wrap, refrigerate, and take it out about an hour before serving.