- Hey bakers John Kanell here
and today on Preppy Kitchen we're making
the ultimate chocolate cupcake
or is this the ultimate chocolate cupcake?
Too much frosting? You let me know.
This stuff is so good
you will be piping it directly into your mouth.
So either make a double batch of it
or have someone keep an eye on you.
Let's get started.
I'm adding 180 grams
or one and a half cups of all purpose flour
into a bowl with a swifter above it.
One and a third cups of sugar.
In you go half a teaspoon of salt
and one teaspoon of baking soda, that's our leavening agent.
We're gonna sieve it up
and whisk it out except that I put out the cocoa powder
that is like the main flavor what I'm I thinking.
Alright, put this back on.
Let's get that cocoa I'm adding one quarter cup
of a high quality cocoa powder.
This is from Valrhona,
but there's tons of nice brands out there.
Now we're gonna sift this lumpy mess out
look at these boulders.
Give it some help.
All right, whisk it up
take it off the scale
if you wanna to be nice to your scale.
Right, now that everything's distributed,
we can set this aside
and work on our wet ingredients after a quick wipe down.
This recipe calls for buttermilk
but I never have buttermilk.
It's just like annoying because
it goes bad so quickly and you use it.
I don't make buttermilk pancakes every day
lemme just say that.
So my solution is to use regular milk
which we're gonna sour with some white vinegar.
You could also use lemon juice if you want to.
We just need to add some acidity to curdle it
and it will help with the leavening agents too.
So almost half a cup
and then we're just gonna pour in a tablespoon or so.
Give it a little stir, stir, stir stir.
By the time ready for it.
It'll be nice and thick.
Into my separate bowl I'm adding in two whole eggs.
A quarter of a cup of sour cream
if you don't have sour cream yogurt will do
as well just use plain whole milk yogurt.
A third of a cup of vegetable oil.
I love this cake because you can go into the fridge
and still be like really,
really soft and totally doesn't have
to come back to room temperature.
That's because of the vegetable oil,
half a cup of our mock buttermilk.
See all that curdle that but it'll taste good.
So I'm supposed to use hot coffee
but this is cool down in the meantime
while we were setting up, it's fine.
The warmer coffee just warms the mixture up a bit
and kind of released the flavor of the cocoa powder
but it'll be fine.
I'm also adding in a splash of vanilla
to two teaspoons for good measure.
totally optional though some people are really bothered
by vanilla going into chocolate things.
You can lemme know in the comments
if that's you or if you're fine with it.
I like a little extra depth of flavor going to stir it up.
Never turned the oven on.
Alright and once you have a nice homogenous mixture,
we can add the wet to the dry.
This can be done in a standard mixer
with a paddle attachment
or it could be done by hand which I'll be doing
right now I just don't wanna deal with another dish.
Let's pour that in.
This makes a very wet batter, so don't be scared.
If it looks too watery.
That's how it's gonna to be magic will happen in the oven,
and it'll become a wonderful moist
but still like fluffy fudgy cupcake.
Doing this by hand means I'm saving electricity
and getting exercise I'm a hero.
You wanna stir this for like you know
a little bit less than a minute.
You do wanna activate some of the gluten in the flour.
You'll see it become nice
and silky and there won't be any lumps left in there.
Strangely mesmerizing set nice drizzly bUtter.
That's what we want, so we're gonna set it aside
and prep our little cupcake papers.
Let's add papers into our 10 I'm using
just plain old white ones.
I like that you can see the chocolate
come through the keys
and the beats and not overfill these they actually
will rise a lot so don't go about
two thirds of the way full.
I'm using a medium ice cream scoop
to help me out, yesterday I used a large one.
Horrible things happened,
it was a full glom pan of chocolate cupcake,
but it looked like a sheet cake.
So I'm gonna try be neat about this .
This is harder when they're giant.
By the way, they're trimming a giant
50 year old pine tree right next door
right outside of the window.
And in case you're wondering,
what's that buzzing sound?
It's chainsaws.
Filling up those cupcakes, they be eating my feelings.
This recipe will make about 16 to 18 cupcakes
depending on how you're filling them.
I have some leftover batter,
so I'm just gonna spray a little three inch pan
and make a mega cupcake
or personal cake for myself.
cupcakes will go into the oven
at 350 Fahrenheit for about 25 minutes
or until the center's are springy and set.
In the meantime,
let's make our dreamy chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.
We need five egg whites.
So let's start separating.
You can use a third bowl to separate in two.
If you're afraid your yolks are gonna break
like that one just did.
If you're quick though, it's not a big deal.
I see some milk in there.
Clean hands is the best way but make sure
you crack those eggs carefully
otherwise bad things are gonna happen.
I should have used that third bowl what was I thinking
once again, trying to be a big shot.
Now we're adding in a cup
and a half of granulated sugar in you go.
If you like your butter cream a bit sweeter
you could add in maybe two extra tablespoons.
At some point though those eggs become saturated
and the sugar won't dissolve into them.
So you have little grains.
And yes, I learned this the hard way.
Give this a stir so it is fully homogenous
add a pinch of salt in here too.
And now we're gonna to put it over a pot of simmering water
making sure the water does not touch the bowl.
Its on steam heated to 160 degrees
and yes, you will be whisking this the whole time.
Alright, so take your 160 degree Fahrenheit egg mixture
and pour it right into your standard mixer.
You can see how gooey it is now.
We're gonna mix on high for about 10 minutes
or so needs to come to room temperature.
While that's going, I'm adding in 10 ounces
of bittersweet chocolate into a bowl.
You can give this a shot if you want
but I think it'll be fine just like this
and we're gonna to place it right over that double boiler
and then you keep mixing by the time they're both done.
Everything will be set.
Let's check in on this.
Look, look how gorgeous this is
this is like my one of my
favorite parts of baking in case you're wondering,
making merengue.
Okay, so it's not ready yet cause it's too warm.
But look at that.
It's like a Dr. Seuss dollop.
This needs to mix for a while longer,
you could actually pack the bowl
on ice to speed things up but that chocolate
has to melt the cupcakes have to bake
so I'm not in a huge hurry.
Once the chocolate starts melting,
you can just give a little stir to help things along
and keep an eye on it.
So my chocolate isn't all the way melted
but I'm taking it off the heat
and those couple extra lumps
will just dissolve on their own.
This needs to start cooling down so you know,
the sooner, the better.
Alright, in the meantime,
my merengue is almost cool enough
and I'm gonna risk it.
Look at this that's ready so you can see how
it has that nice little moveable wobble over there.
The thing is, if it's too warm,
the butter will melt.
This is actually nice in room temperature.
But if you couldn't wait and you plop that butter
and it becomes soupy,
just give it like five minutes in the fridge.
So just take the bowl off into the fridge
and whip it up it should be fine.
Right now we're gonna go on low
and start adding in tablespoon sized pieces
of this room temperature butter.
Butter needs to be nice and room temp not melty.
Add a tablespoon in, give it a beat add the next one.
This will take a minute or two but it's really entertaining.
I call this my wishing well time.
You're gonna see this is gonna become
soupy right away after that first
half cup of butter goes in or 113 grams.
I'm adding in one full pound, by the way.
So 113 times four or, you know, two cups,
or four sticks if you're in America.
So sad that so many American recipes are
not in metric because it's depriving all
those people around the world that don't use cups.
I myself didn't know that cups weren't a thing
until I started my YouTube videos.
I was educated quickly, like what is the cup
Take a look at this ,off.
That's what I'm looking for nice
has a lot of definition.
This still needs to keep going for a bit
cause there are some little specks of butter
in there but that is a nice Swiss marine consistency
you can see there I think it tastes delicious
even without the vanilla,
but instead of vanilla today we're adding chocolate.
This is gonna mix for a couple more minutes
and then this is gonna to keep cooling down.
If it's still really warm,
you can transfer it to a cold bowl,
now will help things along as well.
And this is pretty hot,
so I am gonna transfer it to a cold bowl
to help things along.
You could have also done it in advance which I did not do.
Cupcakes have been cooling in the background.
They're not done yet,
but look at this perfectly filled cupcake.
It makes me so happy.
Yesterday I overfilled the cupcakes
and it was trying,
there's a lot of sneak eating happening on the slide.
So my chocolates been in the fridge for a couple of minutes
and now it's in the 70s so it's perfectly
fine to drizzle in wild as mixes on low.
This is the magical part where everything comes together,
it's so pretty.
So as you can see, the inside is totally chocolatey,
the outside is not mixed.
So let's give it a mix and scrape the bowl down.
I mean that is just right.
So much chocolate.
Not too much sugar light is there.
Okay, we're ready to transfer
this amazing concoction into a piping bag.
I'm fitting it with an 869 tip.
It's my large open star my favorite cupcake decorating tip
especially if you wanna add in a ton of frosting.
So with this dollop I'm gonna add a ton of butter cream
to the bottom and keep turning it clockwise
counterclockwise until it becomes a little point.
That's pretty nice and it's maybe just
the right amount of butter cream, love it.
Let's make a couple more.
So you could also just do one
big dollop without the turning.
It's kinda nice to spiral,
you could just top it with a chocolate covered
espresso bean or maybe a little drizzle of chocolate.
Back to my favorite, I think that looks so nice
and it's really, really easy to do.
By the way, if it's a bit off center,
you can just tap it a little bit
and it'll correct it.
While it's still soft, doesn't go into the fridge,
but they'll really firm up
so I would leave them at room temperature just covered.
So this is the actual amount of frosting
that I like on a cupcake.
I am not a crazy frosting to cake ratio person
I like it to be you know more cake
than frosting in this time for a bite.
Basically speechless all the chocolate pathways
in my brain are firing on full.
You don't taste the coffee really just up
to the chocolate flavor
and this frosting is like the perfect
companion to this fluffy fudgy cupcake.
You've got to try this I don't know
if you can tell how delicious this is,
but I'm like I will be gorging myself off camera.
It's that good.
If you like this recipe,
check out my German chocolate cake.
It has everything you need a
German chocolate cake to be and it is beyond amazing.
Thanks so much for watching.
If you like my videos,
hit that like button and subscribe and I'll see you soon