We have another birthday in my office next week. I asked the birthday girl to name her favorite type of cake and her answer was chocolate with chocolate frosting. I decided to take a practice run to make sure I had a good recipe. I hate making something for the first time for an audience.
I looked through my cookbooks and decided to try a Devil’s Food Cake from the King Arthur Flour “Baker’s Companion”. I cut the recipe in half and made cupcakes. It was a little difficult to cream the small amount of butter in my 6 quart KitchenAid mixer, but in the end it worked out well. Rumor has it that KitchenAid is coming out with a smaller bowl with a new attachment sometime in Spring. I’ll be on the lookout for that.
The cupcakes were very moist and delicious. They had the light, moist quality of a boxed cake mix but with all natural and mostly organic ingredients. I used organic all-purpose flour from King Arthur, organic natural cocoa powder from Trader Joe’s, organic milk and organic butter.
I tried to make the Chocolate Buttercream recipe from the King Arthur cookbook, but found that it was far too sweet for my taste and not nearly chocolatey enough. Luckily I tasted it before adding all of the sugar. I added some more unsweetened chocolate and that improved the taste considerably. I also added a tablespoon of unsweetened dutch process cocoa powder. That addition made a delicious frosting, full of dense chocolate flavor without being overly sweet. I’m not posting the recipe for the frosting yet as it was purely experimental.
Devil’s Food Cupcakes
- 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks, 6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 3/4 cups (12 1/4 ounces superfine or granulated sugar)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
- 2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup (2 1/4 ounces) natural cocoa powder
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) milk, room temperature
- Preheat the oven to 350º F.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, salt, baking soda, and vanilla until fluffy and light, at least 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and cocoa. If lumps remain, sift the mixture.
- Add the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly blend 1/3 of the flour mixture into the creamed mixture, then 1/2 of the milk, another 1/3 of the flour, the remaining milk and lastly the remaining flour. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally throughout this process.
- Line a muffin tin with paper liners. Fill cups 3/4 full and bake for 20 – 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes in the tins and then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. Spread with chocolate frosting of your choice.
So, how did the cupcakes taste? They look yummy!! And what’s this about KitchenAid rumors?? It is for the Pro 600??
The cupcakes were really good. The cake was moist and chocolatey. The icing was good with extra unsweetened chocolate added to balance out the sweetness. The new KitchenAid bowl is supposed to be a Combi-Whip which is a 3 quart bowl with a whip stand mixer attachment. It was recently tested by some people on the KitchenAid forum and should be available at Williams-Sonoma this spring for about $70. It will fit the 5 qt Professional 5 Plus wide bowl-lift model as well as all 6 qt units.