The other day the husband bought the cookbook 500 Cupcakes: The Only Compendium You'll Ever Need . I, being the superior chef and baker, am a little wary of cookbooks that are big on pretty. It usually means they lack substance. And 500 Cupcakes is really big on pretty.
I began looking at the pictures and reading a few recipes and it came across as pretty lazy. One recipe, Vanilla Cupcakes on page 21, states "If you can get vanilla sugar, use half regular superfine and half vanilla superfine..." Huh? If you can get vanilla sugar? Well, considering that vanilla sugar is super easy to make it seems to me that the authors would include how to make it in the recipe rather than implying that you should try and look for it in specialty shops. Vanilla sugar only requires putting a split vanilla bean with the scraped seeds in an airtight container with two cups sugar for two weeks. After two weeks, sift the sugar and you're good to go. But I digress.
Pretty quickly after perusing the book I determined that it was not for me but would look cute on the coffee table for a few months. But just to make sure I decided to test out one recipe. The Classic Chocolate Buttercream Cupcakes on page 32 seemed as good a recipe as any.
The recipes, including the Classic Chocolate, are very straightforward and not difficult to understand and, one would assume, to make. Most of the recipes call for self-rising flour and many of them just require mixing all (or most) of the ingredients together at once. This all-in-one method is great for those who abhor cleaning as it lessens the number of bowls used.
So, I made the Classic Chocolate Butter Cream Cupcakes and...well...they were fantastic! In fact the husband as well as two friends said the cupcakes were the best tasting they had ever tried. Granted, I am a supremely skilled (and quite humble) baker but if the recipe sucks, it sucks!
Here's the recipe with additional commentary at the end.
Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 teaspoon Baking powder
4 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the frosting:
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) chopped semisweet chocolate (jon-marc uses bittersweet chocolate)
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar sifted
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place 18 paper baking cups in muffin pans.
Combine all the cupcake ingredients in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Spoon the batter into the cups. Bake for 20 minutes (jon-marc says 17 minutes).
Remove pans from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Then remove the cupcakes and cool on a rack.
For the frosting, put the chocolate, cream and butter in a pan over low heat. Stir gently until combined.
Remove from the heat and stir in the confectioners' sugar until the mixture is smooth.
Swirl onto the cupcakes.
Store unfrosted in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
Now, although these turned out quite well I have made other recipes from the book since and and they have not turned out so spectacular. Stay tuned and I'll let you know about the others.
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