Challenge #7: Seeing Red And Tasting Chocolate or Shot Through The Heart

Shot through the heart and you're to blame
You give love a bad name
(Bad name)
I play my part and you play your game
You give love a bad name
(Bad name)
Hey, you give love a bad name

 

 I had this song by Bon Jovi stuck in my head the whole time I made these cupcakes for this challenge. Ron had a work day trip, and I thought it would be nice to send along some cupcakes to make up having to work on a Saturday. I had been wanting to make these cupcakes, from The Icing On The Cupcake for awhile, so I figured this was the perfect time to try them out.

Seeing Red and Tasting Chocolate or Shot Through The Heart

1 oz pomegranate juice

1 cup buttermilk

2 eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature (can subsitute with 1 1/2 cups canola oil)

1 tbsp red food colouring

1 tsp white distilled vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp powdered espresso

1 tsp finely ground salt

2 tbsp potato starch (corn starch)

1 tsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp grated dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350'. Place 24 paper liners into cupcake trays.

Cream butter with an electric mixer for 5 minutes or until it changes to a pale shade of yellow.

Add the sugar and beat another 2 minutes.

Add eggs. Beat for another 3 minutes.

In a separate bowl mix together pomegranate juice, buttermilk, vinegar, food colouring and vanilla.

Now I have a food colouring concentrated gel and not a liquid, so I found that I should've just used half the allotted amount and it probably would've been fine.

In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, powdered espresso and cocoa powder.

Alternate adding dry and then wet mixture to batter.

 Gently fold in grated chocolate

Now, in my last post, I chopped up the chocolate. This time I decided to actually grate it to see how well that would work instead. It actually worked really well and I will use this method again in the future.

Pour batter into paper liners. Fill 2/3 of the way to the top.

Bake 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes before placing the cupcakes on a baking rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 cup (or 2 sticks) of butter, room tempurature

1 pound of cream cheese, room tempurature

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups sifted powdered sugar

Cream butter, cream cheese and vanilla together with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy, bout 3-5 minutes.

Add sugar and beat until smooth

frost cooled cupcakes.

As you can see they turned out super red!

They were really tasty, but super dense. Eating one was sort of like eating a whole meal. I think if I make these again, I will make normal butter cream icing or at least cut back on the cream cheese.