chocolate-coffee cupcakes.

On my kitchen agenda today were chocolate coffee cupcakes and beer batter fish fillets. Let me start with the cupcakes.

It has been my custom to bake every other day, and since I didn't bake anything yesterday, I just had to bake something today -- and I was too eager to try another experiment to make my cupcake tops perfect. Yes, I haven't given up on that dream yet. Hah! :D

I wanted to bake something with filling, but decided against it at the last minute cos I'm low on water supply. My kitchen faucet fell off on Monday and it hasn't been fixed yet. We tried fixing it, but it appears that the whole thing was drilled to the wall, and we can't unscrew the faucet cos of the cement. Gaarrrr.

Anyway, I was talking about cupcakes, yes? I made chocolate-coffee cupcakes, upon the request of someone. I got the chocolate cupcake recipe from here, but I just used it as a base. I couldn't be happier with the outcome.

It almost became an epic fail, though. The first batch was already baking when I realized I didn't mix the baking soda with the buttermilk! Wah. Good thing the rest of the cupcakes turned out fine.

Also, I tried to play with the temperature and baking time again. I used to bake cupcakes at 150-160C for 12-15 minutes, and it always resulted to awkward looking "volcano" tops. I tried baking at 125C for 18-20 minutes, and it worked. Yaaay!

I over-filled the muffin tins, they overflowed. Haha. But, they're FLAT!

So without further ado, here's my version of Sis's Chocolate Cupcakes turned into a chocolate coffee cupcake recipe. :)

You'll need: 

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup buttermilk (substituted it with 1/4 cup low-fat milk with 1/4 tbsp lemon juice)
3 heaping tbsp Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tbsp coffee powder
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp coffee extract

• Line muffin pan with cupcake liners. 

• Dissolve baking soda with buttermilk. Set aside. 

• In a sauce pan, melt butter together with cocoa powder and coffee on low fire. When smooth, add water. Stir to combine until smooth. Set aside.

• In another bowl, sift together flour, sugar and salt. Add cocoa mixture and egg and mix at low speed (if using a mixer) or a wooden spoon. Add buttermilk mixture and coffee extract. Beat until smooth.

• Pour/scoop batter into muffin tins. The batter is quite thin, you may want to pour it using a measuring cup, I did. 

messy worktable, eh? ;)

• For conventional ovens, bake at 350F for 20 minutes or until toothpick tester comes out clean. I baked mine at 125C for 18 minutes.

• Cool cupcakes in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack. Cool completely before frosting. I left mine plain cos I no longer had time to frost them. 

Can you tell? They're YUM!

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