Baked Sunday Mornings: Black Forest Cupcakes

After making this week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe -- Black Forest Cupcakes -- I had a weird sense of déjà vu. The Black Forest Cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes filled with cherry jam and topped with seven-minute frosting. I belatedly realized that except for the addition of the cherry jam and optional kirsch, the Black Forest Cupcakes are identical to the Devil's Food Cupcakes with Angel Frosting from Baked Explorations that I made back in 2011. I loved the Devil's Food cupcakes back then, and I love the Black Forest Cupcakes even more.

The cupcake batter includes a substantial dose of freshly brewed coffee, along with dark chocolate, cocoa powder, milk, butter, sugar, dark brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, and salt. My batter looked a bit curdled but I went ahead and poured it into lined cupcake tins. Last time I made this recipe I only got 19 cupcakes and this time I got two dozen -- but last time I probably used more batter for each cupcake since I used tulip paper liners that were quite tall.
The cupcakes baked up with basically flat tops. When they were cooled I removed a small plug of cake from the center of each one (I have a cupcake corer that accomplishes this task beautifully) and filled the cupcakes with cherry jam. I used a jar of Michigan tart cherry preserves from Clearbrook Farms that was a recent impulse buy from T.J. Maxx. These preserves include whole fruit and are delicious -- the flavor is spot on for cherry pie filling. As a bonus, my 10-ounce jar was the perfect quantity to fill my two dozen cupcakes. I omitted the kirsch from the recipe because I don't like my baked goods to be boozy.

I topped the cupcakes with seven minute frosting (an egg white meringue stabilized with hot sugar syrup) and chocolate sprinkles. It's too early on the East Coast for cherries, so I couldn't get any fresh cherries for garnish. I love these cupcakes because the cake is super chocolatey, and yet very light textured. The frosting is also light and airy, and the cherry preserve filling really put these cupcakes over the top. I'm a huge fan.

Recipe: "Black Forest Cupcakes" from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.

Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Devil's Food Cupcakes with Angel Frosting," February 27, 2011.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Mine baked with flat tops too- and I made half a batch, and only got 10 out of it using a US standard muffin/cupcake scoop I've used since pastry school days! They look lovely, and I love the look of the chocolate jimmies- I didn't have any and couldn't justify adding to my sprinkle collection.