Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting

Another experiment mashing together different recipes to satisfy a craving! This time assisted by my lovely roommate who had been wanting to bake with me for a while. We spent some time scouring the internet for easy recipes that combined chocolate cake and fruit before settling on this experiment in deliciousness.

SUPPLIES:

• 2 Cupcake Tins
• Cupcake liners
• Rice

CAKE:

• 2 cups 1 to 1 flour (I used Bob’s Redmill)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, grated, chopped or broken in pieces
• 6 Tablespoons butter, cubed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

FROSTING:

• 1 cup raspberries, frozen or fresh (I used frozen)
• 3 tbs lemon juice
• 1 lb confectioner’s sugar
• 1 cup butter, room temperature

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

2. In a large bowl sift in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside. In a medium saucepan, mix the sugar and water and bring to a boil to dissolve sugar.

3. Pour mixture into a large bowl and add the chopped chocolate and butter. Let sit stirring occasionally until the chocolate has melted. Once chocolate has melted, beat for about 1 minute with electric mixer. 

4. Mix in vanilla and stir with a spoon. Let mixture cool for 5-10 minutes.

5. In a small bowl beat the eggs. Add eggs to chocolate mixture and beat on medium until combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.

6. Add a little bit of rice to the bottom of each cupcake tin. This will help absorb extra oil and let the wrappers come off much more easily. Add cupcake liners. Distribute the batter evenly.

7. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Keep an eye on them because they might bake faster. Let cool and start on the frosting.

8. Add raspberries and lemon juice to a saucepan over medium heat. After the mixture heats up for a few minutes, mash the raspberries then allow it to simmer for about 10 minutes.

9. Strain mixture into a bowl. Cover and chill.

10. Cream the room temperature butter for a few minutes.

11. Beat in the confectioner’s sugar and add in a tablespoon at a time of the raspberry reduction until the desires color and consistency is reached. I ended up using most of it.

12. Once cupcakes are cool, fill a piping bag and frost to your hearts content!

MY TAKEAWAYS:

I am reasonably happy with these cupcakes. It’s a new cupcake recipe and it definitely didn’t fluff up like a “regular” cupcake. The batter was very liquidy and the cupcake much more moist than expected. It didn’t taste bad, but was an unexpected outcome. They weren’t difficult to make though!

The frosting was pretty tart with the raspberry and the lemon. This ended up being an excellent complement to the richness of the cupcake. It was easy to use and achieved a great pink color without any dye.

Overall, I would make these again, but use a different cupcake recipe. I would also be interested to experiment with different naturally fruit flavored buttercreams!