Oreo Vanilla Cupcake with Tempered Dark chocolate Icing

Do you want to dig into pure pleasure of dark chocolate crunch followed by vanilla sponge and taste gooey dark chocolate Oreo Bites?

Then read on…

Experience is a wonderful thing, irrespective of whether its good or bad. A good one definitely make one feel good but even a not such a nice on leaves with a learning. This goes word to word for me and my baking. To tell you very honestly my equation with cake batter has not changed much, remember my confession here

Kitchen still feels like boxing ring where batter calls me for a face off every time I pick up a recipe to try….But as I mentioned before, experience is teaching me tricks and tip even if batter gets the upper hand some times.

I have learnt the most important thing is that I need to give it love and attention to make it behave. Accuracy in measurement and patience while mixing and baking, is doing wonders. So yes, we are getting better in terms of sweet successes. 

This newly acquired trait “Experience” has given wings to creativity, now when I see some good recipe I don’t hesitate to try and even I think of new recipes and  ideas(Ahuum Ahumm J). As an ardent fan of “Masterchef Australia” I have learnt one thing to look at recipes as building block and use them to create something new altogether.

So what have I done so special that I am writing so much about it..well nothing indeed. Yes really just took my vanilla cupcake recipes and added Oreo and choc chips to have this divine vanilla chocolate cupcake.

Just that?? Yes!!!. Its that simple that indeed it’s feeling silly to write the recipe. Mind you!!! These cupcakes are only simple to make but the flavors are to die for. I am big fan of Oreo and have seen few dishes incorporating it. What is so great about this cookie is when baked it converts into such wonderful soft gooey texture. My plain vanilla cupcake came alive with its dark and dense chocolate taste with vanilla cream melted in the cake to intensify the vanilla taste.

Shall I talk about the dark chocolate icing…Let me do a quick dance first!! I am excited and thrilled to share this here that my first ever Chocolate tempering effort is a success. 

If you are wondering what Tempering is??? Its defined as process of producing small cocoa butter crystals to get the uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate is tempering.

It is actually a simple yet technical thing to do. Chocolate is melted in a double boiler which is not boiling till it reaches 46-48°C (depending on milk or dark chocolate) then a small amount of chopped chocolate is added in the melted hot chocolate. The mix is stirred to maintain the same temperature though out and then again the temperature is increased till 46-48 °C. For Dark chocolate the chocolate is melted at 46-48°C. Tempered chocolate get spread or poured warm and the temperature is maintained placing the pan back on double boiler when ever required.

I tried tempering with a small batch of chocolate  and without thermometer, just going by my instinct.Luck was on my side and my temperature instinct worked. I coated my cupcake with warm tempered chocolate and in the end I had this wonderful shiny and full of bite chocolate layer on top.

It’s a sin full delicious cupcake…don’t trust me??? you have to bake to believe. 

For the cupcake 

1/2 cup  Unsalted Butter, softened to room temperature

1 cup  Granulated Sugar

2 Eggs (use 1 cup curd, if you don’t want to use egg)

1 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1½ cup Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Milk

¼ Cup Chocolate Chips

6 Oreo Cookies chopped in big chunks

For frosting

200 gm Dark Chocolate Chopped

2 Tbsp Milk Chocolate grated (Optional)

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

In a bowl beat the butter and sugar together with a handheld mixer whisker attachment on medium speed for 2-3 minutes until creamed and fluffy.

Add eggs and vanilla and beat on medium speed until everything is combined, about 2 -3 minutes.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 additions and stirring by hand after each addition. Mix until just combined, do not over mix. This batter will be thick.

Fold in chocolate chips and Oreo chunks with spatula.

Divide the batter between 12 liners in your cupcake pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For Tempered Chocolate icing

Prepare a Bain Marie (Double boiler) by placing a saucepan on stove with some water. Take a slightly smaller pan and put ¾ of the chopped chocolate in it.

Place the smaller pan in the simmering water pan, making sure only the bottom of the pan touches the water. PLEASE MAKE SURE THE WATER IS NOT BOILING and you be careful about no water droplet gets into the chocolate pan. PLEASE FOLLOW this to the “T” or else you will not be getting tempered chocolate at all.

When the chocolate is melted remove from heat and add chopped chocolate and stirrer this with a spatula until all the chocolate is dissolved. Place this pan again in the simmering water pan and stirrer gently for 1 min and remove from heat.

Your chocolate must be shiny and super smooth. Cover the top of your cupcakes generously with it and sprinkle grated milk chocolate.

Leave you cupcakes alone to get the chocolate set on the top. You can tuck these shiny babies in the refrigerator for 5 min, if you are in a hurry to eat them: D

Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts

Ever since I have made Doughnuts at home (Yes, I can proudly say that) my husband is just not interested to eat any store brought one (Yes I am writing from Cloud number nine ;)) and Now I am making them quite often.

This time I thought to upgrade them with a glaze and no marks for guess, Chocolate is the most obvious one.

How to make doughnuts part is not changed at all and here is your Recipe of doughnut.

 

Sky is the limit when it come to glaze these doughnuts, its just the matter of what you find handy to play around with. As we don’t get many exiting sprinkle options here in grocery next door or even in Super markets. I would insist on sticking to using only good tasting options rather than anything available.

I used plane dark chocolate glaze which is super easy and taste good.

All you need is:

1 Cup Chopped Dark Chocolate

½ Cup Unsalted Sugar

1 Cup Confectioner Sugar

1 Tbsp warm water

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave for 2 minutes giving a stir every 30 sec .

Add sugar and water in small amounts and mix well after every addition to form a nice glossy not so thik paste.

Dip the doughnuts one at a time and keep on a wire rack to catch the access.

Let it cool for a while, you can place the tray in refrigerator for 5 min for quick set.

If you want to perk them  some little sprinkles, it will be fun.

Double Chocolate Cupcake with chocolate frosting

In the west you hear lot about comfort food, honesty this term does not make much sense to my Indian foodie heart as I feel everything we cook is comforting and specially what our mother would  cook for us is the ultimate comfort food. With this thought, I was thinking what really pops in our head when most of think of one thing which would bring a smile. Chocolates!!!

I am sure I could not be wrong with that. We all are so obsessed with chocolates and its loved by every age and gender. So I got my sleeve’s up to bake dark, rich, soft and extremely chocolaty double chocolate cupcake with a smooth chocolate frosting. Well I did not made my frosting super chocolaty as I like the chocolate chips to stand out but you can go ahead with adding 2-3 full tbsp of coco powder to intensify the chocolate flavor in the cupcake frosting.

Though I started with a mood to do beautifully frosted cupcake but in the end lost the steam and again washed my hand by rustic look (lazy look, I should write rather) but the taste did the talking and my little one came running for the next one as soon as finished her first cupcake.

Double Chocolate Cupcake

1/2 cup Unsalted butter

80gm Semi-sweet dark chocolate

1/2 cup Cocoa powder

3/4 cup All-purpose flour

1/2 tsp Baking soda

3/4 tsp Baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup  granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp  vanilla extract

1/2 cup  buttermilk

Dark Chocolate Frosting

2 ¾ cup Confectioners’ sugar

2/3 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

6 Tbsp heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips for decoration

For the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with cupcake liners. I used a 6 cup pan and baked in two batches.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave for 2 min and stirring every 30 sec. You may also melt the butter and chocolate over low heat on a double boiler. Stir until smooth and let it cool a bit.

In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together until thoroughly combined.

 In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla together until smooth. Add the cooled butter/chocolate and whisk until smooth.

Add half of the flour mixture, then half of the buttermilk. (To make buttermilk at home just add a tsp of  white vinegar in ½ cup milk and let it stand for 5-7 min.)***

Repeat until everything is added. Stir until just combined; do not overmix. The batter will be very thick, so don’t worry.

Divide the batter between 12 liners in your cupcake pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting: sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder to assure there are no lumps. Set aside.

 With a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy - about 2 minutes. Gradually add the sifted sugar/cocoa powder alternately with the heavy cream and vanilla. Beat on low speed after each addition. Once all added, beat on high speed until creamy and combined for at least 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt if frosting is too sweet.

Frost cooled cupcakes and top with chocolate chips and that’s it. You have these lovely cute intense chocolate cupcake inviting to taste them. Do bake them and let me know, how they turned out.