Chocolate cake recipe like the one in 'Wichcraft's chocolate cupcake

[Dylan]

'Wichcraft (locations in SF and New York and possibly elsewhere) has about the best chocolate cupcake I've ever had. It's sort of a very upscale creme filled hostess cupcake. The cake itself has the following characteristics: very moist, fine grained and soft (so I am guessing the butter and flour are mixed directly, a characteristic of fine grained soft cakes), extremely dark and chocolatey. It's quite a dense cake, but it's clearly a cake- the flour is very evident. It almost melts in your mouth. It tastes like it is made with quite high quality chocolate, like a Valrhona.

Anyone have a cake recipe that sounds like this?

[MatthewG]

Dylan,

Here is a little treat from your friends at ‘wichcraft. The recipe comes compliments of Karen DeMasco, Pastry Chef at craft and craftbar, who originally developed this delicious dessert for us. Enjoy!

‘wichcraft cupcakes (aka devil’s food cake cupcakes)

Yield: 36 cupcakes

1 ½ cups cocoa powder
1 ¼ cups warm water

1 ½ cups cake flour
1 ½ cups All-Purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

1 stick + 2 tablespoons butter
3 ½ cups dark brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

3 eggs

1 ¼ cup buttermilk

Whisk together cocoa and water to make a paste. Sift dry ingredients together. In the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add in the eggs one at a time followed by cocoa paste. Once combined, alternate adding dry ingredients and buttermilk. Place 24 paper cupcake liners into muffin tins. Fill the liners up to ½-inch from the top and bake at 325ºF for about 25 minutes, turning after the first 12 minutes. Cake should be firm to the touch and when the center is inserted with a knife, it should come out clean.

Cream filling

1 ½ cups heavy cream
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, whip all of the ingredients to soft peak.

Ganache frosting

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
½ cup corn syrup
¾ cup heavy cream

In a saucepot, bring the heavy cream and corn syrup to a boil. In the meantime, with a serrated knife, chop the chocolate into uniform small pieces and place in a mixing bowl. Once the heavy cream and syrup have come to a boil, pour over the chocolate and mix until combined and all chocolate has melted.

Assembly

Fill a piping bag with a small round tip with the Cream Filling. Insert a paring knife through the cupcake liner into the bottoms of each cupcake making an opening big enough to insert the pastry bag tip. Slowly squeeze a bit of whipped cream into cupcake until you feel some resistance.*
To frost, dip each cupcake into the warm Ganache Frosting. Swirl them so that top is covered. Set aside to let cool and harden.

*Overfilling causes the cupcake to split or the top to pop off.

[Dylan]

Wow!!! Thank you so much, that is just brilliant! I am excited to try making this. A true mitzvah!

[Dylan]

May I also point out that her peanut butter sandwich cookies are out of this world too. Those I've actually made - people go crazy for them. I hope she writes a cookbook some day!

[Dylan]

I posted a lengthier thank you note on my blog, www.milquetoast.us

[FrenchSoda]

Hi
The recipe looks absolutely delicious. Does anyone know how long these will keep? If I made them the evening before, for example, would they still be good to take to into work the next day, or would the cream absorb too much into the cake?

[Tehama]

Matthew, thank you SO VERY MUCH for posting this recipe. I just made a batch and I am in heaven. They are incredible. Needless to say, time consuming, but worth every minute. I followed every bit of the directions and they are right on target (yes, overfilling does cause the top of the cupcake to split!).

Of note, I had enough batter to make another small cake (so 36 cupcakes + a small cake). And, eyeballing it, I didn't think there would be enough pastry cream for the cupcakes, so I increased the yield by about 50/75%. I was wrong about that... there would have been plenty. Now... what to do with the leftover pastry cream.

Matthew- thanks again! I can't wait to take these to dinner with me tonight!

[marcia2]

The recipe says the yield is 36 cupcakes, but the instructions say to set up 24 cupcakes. Based on Tehama's post, I'm guessing the 24 is the error, but I just wanted to check.

[4chowpups]

I just made something like this last week from Food and Wine. I will check their site for you and see if I can pull up the recipe. If not, I will try to post it for you.

Found it...
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/ch...

Make sure not to over cook them, I made two different batches and used small cupcake holders (the white cup type) which came out better than the ones in a regular muffin tin. Everyone loved them.

[dolores]

Excellent. My mother was recently telling me about the same cupcake that ATK made on PBS, and she didn't get the recipe. She did say the filling had marshmallow fluff and, she thought, cream cheese in it. Guess it was heavy cream.

Thanks much, 4chowpups.