Chocolate Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

Take the deepest, darkest chocolate flavor. Add a soupçon of coffee. Crown with cream cheese frosting with a hint of orange zest. Devour.

Only one thing could unseat a coworker's favorite birthday treat and it was these cupcakes. The cupcake is moist and flavorful and the frosting is lightly orange, sweet enough but not cloyingly. You can make them a day or two in advance without compromising the texture, just store them in a sealed container in the fridge.

They're easy to make but the batter is exceedingly thin, so the first time I made them, I poured the batter into a large measuring cup. That was fine, but my measuring cup dripped all over the muffin tins. The second time I made them I experimented with using a piping bag. This is what happened:

Maybe that wasn't the way to go.

Chocolate Cupcakes - adapted from Ina Garten, inspired by Jamie at My Baking Addiction
Printer friendly recipe
Makes 24 cupcakes

1 3/4 cups/245 grams all-purpose flour
2 cups/190 grams sugar
3/4 cups/72 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners; set aside.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In a 2 cup measure, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla and stir with a fork to blend. With the mixer on the lowest speed (I use the Stir speed on my KitchenAid), slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on the  lowest setting, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The batter will be very thin. Don't worry if you have a few lumps.

Using a large piping bag or measuring cup, fill the muffin wells 2/3 full. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack and cool completely.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting - adapted from My Baking Addiction

16 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
zest of one large orange
9 tablespoons/4 1/2 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 pounds confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (optional but soo good)

In a the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened cream cheese at medium speed for about 3 minutes. Add the softened butter, orange zest and beat until well combined, about 2 minutes. 

With the mixer on low, gradually add the powdered sugar until thoroughly incorporated and smooth. Add the extracts and mix to combine.

Put the frosting in a piping bag fitted with a star tip (or use a knife or small offset spatula) to swirl frosting on each cupcake. Store cupcakes in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Remove to room temperature 30-45 minutes before serving.

Hidden Plum Berry Torte

This is the first rewind week for Tuesdays with Dorie in a long time. I was so excited, and then it hit me.

I'd have to decide on a recipe from the ones that were made in the 9 months before I joined. And that is not an easy thing, but I finally decided on Dorie's Hidden Berry Torte.

I used homemade gingered plum raspberry preserves (recipe here) and added cinnamon and ginger to the cheese filling. My torte looked great after 40 minutes in the oven, but at 57 minutes, the top was browned and cracked. It was still jiggly, so I tented it and baked it for a few more minutes. Once cooled to room temperature, the torte was refrigerated overnight. I let it warm up slightly before removing the side of the springform pan.

The verdict? It was good, but could have been better. My Twitter buddy Nancy fine-tuned it by adding more jam (the 1/3 cup the recipe called for wasn't enough to make an impression on the taste buds) and covering loosely with foil from the very beginning. Nancy's torte was snow white on the top, definitely better than my browned top. The filling was creamy and luscious, the crust sandy like a sable cookie. It was devoured quickly at work, which is all a baker can ask for!

Check out what the other TWD members made this week. You can find them here. And make sure you check out my giveaway...YOU could win a $100 Visa gift card (and get my recipe for double chocolate scones)! Just leave a comment on this post.

TWD Rewind - Bill's Big Carrot Cake

I have used the same carrot cake recipe for YEARS. It is always well loved but I was ready for a change. Dorie Greenspan has a carrot cake in Baking From My Home to Yours that was chosen before I joined Tuesdays with Dorie, and I figured I'd give it a try. I have heard whispers about how yummy and flat out fantastic it is from reading some of my fellow TWD bloggers' posts, and I wanted to see how it compared to my go-to recipe.

My recipe has an 8 ounce can of crushed pineapple (juice included) and no coconut. That gives it a LLOOONNNGGGG life in the refrigerator, but that isn't always a plus unless you're a "B" diner. Dorie's recipe has just cinnamon, and mine had a mixture of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.) Dorie's calls for raisins or dried cranberries in addition to the nuts. Otherwise, the two were similar.

The recipe came together quickly and smelled amazing while it was baking. Since I made this a couple of weeks before I needed it, I cooled the layers completely and then triple wrapped them in plastic wrap and double wrapped them in heavy duty foil. My freezer is small and my friend Susan has a humongo freezer, so they had a sleep over at her house. On the day I planned to serve the cake, I let the layers sit out at room temperature (still wrapped) for an hour or two before I assembled the cake.

Dorie's cream cheese frosting recipe uses a pound of confectioner's sugar to 8 ounces of cream cheese, but adds a tablespoon of lemon juice to counteract the sweetness. I didn't have an available lemon, so I cut back on the sugar (to 14 ounces). I left the sides of the cake bare as Dorie did in the picture in the book.

This cake rocked our world. I used Vietnamese cinnamon and it gave the cake a wonderful depth of flavor. Normally, I use about half the amount of Vietnamese cinnamon since it's so assertive, but I really liked the spiciness it gave. We even liked it without any frosting.

My old recipe? It's history. Dorie's recipe? It's the future. A very yummy future, indeed. To make this cake a part of your future, check out the book Baking From My Home to Yours. It is an amazing feast of go-to recipes just as great as this one.