- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today I'm Preppy Kitchen,
we're making delicious black bottom cupcakes.
So let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350.
We're gonna be making our cheesecake filling first.
I want six ounces of very soft
room temperature cream cheese, just like this
into a big bowl.
I'm using a hand mixer today,
but you could definitely use your stand mixer
with paddle attachment if you want.
To sweeten things up,
I'm adding a quarter cup of granulated sugar.
And if you haven't had a black bottom cupcake before,
oh my gosh, I don't know about the name,
but they are delicious, like cheesecake brownies basically.
If I was naming them,
I would've called them cheesecake brownie bites,
but I don't have that power, not yet.
We're gonna cream this up on medium until it's smooth.
I don't wanna beat a ton of air into it,
it's really just to work the sugar in really well.
You also wanna make sure there's no lumps of cream cheese
hanging around.
Honestly, if I was making this recipe, which I am,
I would just warm the cream cheese up in the microwave
on half power, just like you would soften butter.
So, doing that's gonna give you a really nice consistency
and ensure there's no like random lump
of unsweetened cream cheese hanging around.
So this holds together,
I'm gonna add one room temperature egg right in,
as well as a healthy pinch
or about an eight of a teaspoon of salt.
Salt's gonna give you some balance.
And if you don't add it to your desserts,
they oftentimes just read flat and you don't taste as much
of all the delicious ingredients.
Gonna mix this on medium until it's well-combined.
Now you don't want any pool of egg hanging around.
That would not be delicious.
Grab a spatula and just scrape the bowl down.
You can probably work this together without mixing it again,
but I just wanna make sure
there's no streaks of unmixed and nonsense hanging around.
So especially, it'd be true if you're using a stand mixer
because this isn't a lot of material
and the stand mixer is not as happy when it's mixing less.
And now I want half a cup of mini chocolate chips.
The big chocolate chips
are just too large for these cupcakes,
so, the minis will do just fine.
If you don't have them, just use some chopped chocolate.
It's a very satisfying noise.
All right.
Stir those so they're well distributed.
And we're gonna set this aside
and get to our chocolate portion.
For that brownie portion on the bottom,
we're gonna have another bowl out.
I'm gonna sift things because there's cocoa powder involved.
And I want 90 grams
or three quarters of a cup of all-purpose flour.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Using a scale is gonna give you the best results ever.
If you've ever had something
where you followed the directions perfectly,
but you get like a bready or dense baked good,
probably too much flour
and it's really easy to avoid with the scale.
Now I want half a cup or 100 grams of granulated sugar.
This is gonna give us a very soft cake as well.
The sugar softens things up and changes the consistency
in addition to sweetening.
I also want a quarter cup of cocoa powder
that's 25 grams.
This is natural cocoa powder, by the way,
it's not Dutch processed.
You could use either,
but here, the acid in the cocoa powder
is gonna help react with the baking soda we're adding
right now.
Specifically, we're adding half a teaspoon of baking soda.
Baking powder has all the ingredients
to react and leaven things.
Baking soda needs an acid to help reach its full potential.
One quarter teaspoon of salt.
Just a little bit is gonna give us a nice contrast.
Now it's time to sift this together.
You really always wanna sift cocoa powder out,
it's just so a lumpy.
It's the fat it that's holding it all together.
As this scale is done, I'm gonna grab a whisk,
just bring it together.
This gets set aside.
One more thing to mix up and that's the wet ingredients.
The wet ingredients are pretty cool.
Half a cup of water.
I always love that water can do some magic in a recipe
'cause you think you have to use milk or cream,
but no, it'll be nice and rich, and you're gonna love it.
A quarter cup of vegetable oil.
If you wanted to, you could use really any oil you like,
avocado oil, flaxseed oil.
Anything that's mild will work well.
For leavening,
I'm helping the baking soda out with vinegar.
This acid will react with the baking soda
and make things nice and light.
I want one and a half teaspoons.
Finally, this is totally optional,
but I just love a kiss of vanilla,
so just half a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
If you don't wanna do it, you can skip it
or you could use a little bit of coffee
or any other flavor you wanna add an undertone of.
Give it a mix.
Now we're gonna pour the wet into the dry.
Stir this together until it's just combined, don't overmix.
It smells so chocolatey and amazing
and I just love the vibe of these cupcakes.
You wouldn't expect them to be as good as they are.
They're just like chocolate cheesecake bites
that come together in a few minutes.
I want you to see that this is like a watery,
like it's not a really thick batter,
but magic's gonna happen in the oven.
My chocolate batter is ready.
The cheesecake mixture is ready
and now we're gonna grab, hm,
grab but with grace your cupcake tin
and just line it with papers.
Now we're gonna divide the chocolate batter evenly
into the cupcake papers.
You'll see how full they get, not gonna be totally full.
This is a tiny scoop for babies, I want a big one.
That's more like it.
If you wanted to,
you could add so many different things to this
that would be really nice.
I am kind of random
and might like some toasted pecan bits in there,
but you could add like little mini M&M's for color
into the cheesecake mixture or over the top,
to like anything you want.
You let me know
if you would do something extra for these,
like maybe some peanut butter.
I kinda think these cupcakes are are named
just because of the way they look.
It's like a cheesecake topping with a black,
like, delicious brownie base, black bottomed cupcakes.
But if you know exactly where they're from,
please let me know.
Maybe they're from a state fair or something
or someone who want a recipe contest from the 50s
or something like that.
Now we're gonna spoon the cheesecake mixture
right on top of the chocolate.
I'm using a small triggered scoop,
but you can just use a spoon.
The one thing I wanna say
is try and just get like a little plop in the middle,
as opposed to getting it messy,
you wanna see that division of the two batters.
Some people call these tuxedo cupcakes, that's pretty cute.
It kinda of reminds me
of the tuxedo chocolate-covered strawberries I make,
but totally different.
Okay.
My batter is all gone
and that means it's time for these guys to go into the oven,
350 for however long, I don't know.
(faint dinging)
350 for 16 to 18 minutes.
You can tell when they're done
because the centers will be set.
(faint dinging)
Or until a skewer comes out clean from the middle
and the cream cheese topping is set.
In you go.
(lighthearted music)
Fresh outta the oven and just cool enough to eat.
Look at this cheesecake and brownie
married together,
it's a perfect match.
That's almost a molten chocolate lava cake
with cheesecake mixed in.
It is so good.
You've gotta try this recipe.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe
and if you like this video, check out my chocolate playlist.