Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes

The cupcake craze has truly taken over the food world.  Specialty cupcake shops are located all over the country, and have even started to appear overseas!  Despite my love of the sweet treat, I have bitten into too many with cloyingly sweet frosting and lackluster cake.  Is it too much to ask that a cupcake’s taste match its fancy exterior?

I made these cupcakes for a birthday party a few months ago, and let me tell you–THEY ARE DELICIOUS.  Wanting to put a unique spin on the traditional cupcake, I decided to dip the strawberry-filled beauties in chocolate.  I don’t know if I will ever be able to go back to a normal cupcake.  The textural crunch of the hardened chocolate with the strawberry filling creates the illusion of the ever-popular chocolate covered strawberry, but in cupcake form.  Yes, it’s an extra step to an already involved process, but the end result is well worth the effort.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes:

These cupcakes are quite labor-intensive, so save them for a special occasion.  I imagine that you could substitute any fruit for the strawberries, as long as it pairs well with chocolate (raspberries, blueberries, or lemon curd).  The cake recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cooking School, but feel free to substitute your favorite cake recipe.  Makes approximately 2 dozen cupcakes

Cake Ingredients:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cup cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

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Frosting Ingredients:

1 lb. dark chocolate, chopped

1 cup heavy cream

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1 lb. strawberries, diced

2 cups chocolate chips

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To Make the Cake

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place liners in a cupcake pan and set aside.

Whisk together both flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 6 minutes.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Reduce the mixer speed to medium and add eggs one at a time, beating to incorporate fully after each and scraping down sides of the bowl as needed.  Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk and ending with the flour.  Beat in the vanilla.  The batter should be smooth and thick.

Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, approximately 30 minutes.  Remove from the pans and cool completely.

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To Make the Frosting:

Put the chopped chocolate in a medium-sized bowl.  Heat the cream in a small saucepan until steaming (not boiling!)  Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let sit for 1 minute.  Stir slowly until the mixture is incorporated.  Let cool to room temperature.

When the ganache has cooled, put in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Whip until the ganache has become light in color and fluffy.  Refrigerate until ready to frost the cupcakes.

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To Assemble the Cupcakes:

Cut a small cone out of the center of each cupcake (see this website for instructions).  Fill each cupcake with strawberries and replace the cupcake “lid”.  When all cupcakes are filled, melt the chocolate chips.  Dip each cupcake in the melted chocolate (or spread the chocolate on each cupcake with a knife) and set aside for the chocolate to set.  When the chocolate has hardened, frost the cupcakes with the whipped ganache.

 

Phew!  –Enjoy

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread with Streusel

This past summer, I spent much of my time experimenting in the kitchen with my dear friend Melika, whose passion for both food and life exudes happiness on everyone she meets.  Although we often cooked together several days a week, it was a tradition to hold Thursday morning breakfasts before we strolled off to work.  These, however, were not your ordinary college student’s breakfasts, rather elaborate creations that evoked minutes of silent savoring on our sunny porch.

Frittatas with beet greens, goat cheese and caramelized onions, yogurt with freshly picked strawberries, Greek honey and homemade granola, homemade lemon and raspberry muffins, the list of delicious food goes on and on.  At the end of the summer, however, Melika had to move back to NYC for school, thus ending our much-cherished Thursday morning tradition.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure to spend an afternoon in the kitchen with my Thursday morning friend once again.  In place of an elaborate breakfast however, we decided to make a fall classic—pumpkin chocolate chip bread.

The recipe is based on the pumpkin bread recipe in my favorite and always-reliable baking book, The Martha Stewart Baking Handbook.  After two years, I have almost cooked my way through its entirety without a single disappointment; this pumpkin bread is no exception.  Extremely moist, with a spicy core of pumpkin, dots of chocolate chips, and a cream cheese streusel, this bread certainly deserves a spot in your list of favorite fall recipes as well.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread with Streusel:

(Adapted from The Martha Stewart Baking Handbook)

Note: This pumpkin bread freezes quite well, so don’t be turned off by the amount of bread this recipe makes.  Plus, I always find that people welcome baked goods with open arms and empty stomachs.

Yield: 2-8 ½ x 4 ½ inch loaves and 5 mini loaves or 3-8 x 4 ½ inch loaves

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Unsalted butter, room temperature, for pans

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Streusel:

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup brown sugar

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

½ cup pecans (optional)

¼ teaspoon salt

2 oz. cream cheese, cut into small pieces

3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces

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1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour*

1/3 cup millet flour

1/3 cup barley flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups canned pumpkin purée

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed dark-brown sugar

4 large eggs

¼ cup vegetable oil

1 2/3 cup buttermilk

1 ¼ cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Coat the pans with butter; set aside.

To make the streusel, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nuts and salt in a bowl.  Cut in the butter and cream cheese until the mixture resembles a very coarse cornmeal.  Refrigerate.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and salt; set mixture aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the pumpkin purée and both sugars.  Mix on medium speed until well combined, 2 to 3 minutes.  Add the eggs, one at a time to the bowl.  Mix until incorporated, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl after you add each egg.  Mix in the oil until incorporated.  With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the buttermilk (beginning and ending with the flour), until just combined.  Fold in the chocolate chips.

Divide the batter among the prepared loaf pans and top with the streusel mixture.  Bake for approximately 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean (you can expect some melted chocolate, simply make sure there isn’t any batter).  Transfer the loaves to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes.  Remove from the pans and cool completely.

Enjoy.

 

*Feel free to use only all-purpose flour, or 2/3 all-purpose and 1/3 whole wheat flour if you don’t have millet or barley flour in the cupboard.