Filled Cupcakes for A Sweet Punch

This post is for A Sweet Punch event hosted by Divya, Maria and Ria. The theme for this month is Filled Cupcakes. I had a lot of fun baking these and took them to a party where they were all gone fast!

Here is the original recipe from Divya. Thanks Divya - I loved these cupcakes!

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream filling
Recipe source - Baking Bites

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream (low fat or full) -can be substituted with yogurt or cream mixed with a tsp of yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2-oz dark chocolate
1 cup water, boiling

Method Preheat the oven to 350F and lightly grease two 12-cup muffin tins.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light.
Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by sour cream and vanilla extract.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
Add half of flour mixture to the butter mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla extract, followed by the addition of the rest of the flour mix.
Stir well between each addition and mix until no streaks of flour remain.
Stir the cocoa powder and the dark chocolate into the boiling water (easiest in a large measuring cup).
Pour chocolate water into the rest of the batter and stir until uniform.
Evenly distribute batter into prepared baking cups. Bake for 13-15 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and the cakes spring back when lightly pressed. (It’s fine if you can’t fit both trays into the oven at the same time, just wait until one batch finishes before putting in the second pan)
Turn cupcakes out onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting and filling.

It was a super hectic weekend for me and I was kind of in a hurry to make these. We were going out for lunch and I had to finish these early so I could come back from lunch and then frost these. And then take them to a party at 4:00.

I have no idea what happened - but my cupcakes did not rise like cupcakes at all. They baked like they were meant to be filled. I'm not kidding. You'll see what I mean.

So, I started out with the butter and sugar.  Mix them until its fluffy and combined well.

Now, add the eggs one at a time and let it all get to know each other well.

And then I added the sour cream - all of it together. I think this was the mistake I did. I read the instructions but since the second step asks to beat the eggs in and add the sour cream and extract - I did just that. After I added the flour, I read again that you are supposed to add these in intervals. Oh welll..too late.

I added the vanilla extract.

And then the dry flour mixture along with the baking powder and salt. Add this a little at a time so that it blends together well with the wet mixture.

Line up some cupcake liners and get ready for the pour.

Instead of having all chocolate cupcakes, I decided to split into two and make both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. So, I filled the first batch with just the batter as is. And I filled them up a little more than half like I normally do for cupcakes. I think this was also a mistake because they overflowed. So, for the next batch of chocolate cupcakes, I reduced this too to less than half the liner.

Now, bake this in a 350F pre heated oven for about 11-12 mins or until it passes the tooth pick test.

While that was baking, I added the cocoa powder to the rest of the dough to make chocolate cupcakes. Even though this is just half the dough, I still added the 1/4 cup of cocoa powder. You see - I like my stuff really chocolatey..

Now, do you see what I was talking about before. These cupcakes did not rise fully - They actually rose and then the center jumped back in all the way to the bottom making a nice dent perfect for filling. I have no clue why this happened! LOL! But, all I can say that these were perfect for filling.

I have to tell you here though that these were the softest, tastiest, melt in your mouth cupcakes. I was finding it really hard to resist myself from just gulping these down as it is. They were super good! I think the sour cream made all the difference - it provided such a wonderful texture to these otherwise normal cupcakes.

They did all overflow on the top and made much bigger circles than I needed - I would have left it like that - but the problem was that they were all not of uniform size.

And so, I did this to make them all the same size. I overturned the cupcake gently and cut off the edges that had spilled out. Try and save some of those edges and don't eat them all. This is where I was wishing my hands were tied and my mouth was shut with a tape! Could not stop nibbling on these crisp edges - they were little pieces of joy!

See, now they are all pretty much the same size.

I also made the chocolate butter cream filling using the recipe provided. I skipped on the vanilla cream filling though. Really, once I have an option of chocolate, I cannot get myself to make a vanilla cream. And besides, since I split up the batter into both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, I thought the vanilla cupcakes would go great with a chocolate filling. So, just made the chocolate cream frosting and used the same to fill the cupcakes too.

Here's the recipe from Divya for the chocolate buttercream frosting -

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat, with an electric mixer, until frosting is creamy, 3-5 minutes. Add additional powdered sugar as needed to achieve a thick, but not stiff, frosting that is easy to spread. Add additional milk, if necessary, to thin the frosting if it gets too thick.


This was a really good recipe for the frosting too - I just used 2 cups of icing sugar and it was perfect consistency. Sorry I had to rush and really did not take pictures for making the frosting. I made the frosting and filled a piping bag with it.

I piped some frosting inside the cupcakes as a filling.

And then covered them with the bits that were cut off from the side.

And then frosted them up completely. Perfect! Who can tell that these were little sunken cupcakes!

Here are both my vanilla cupcakes and the chocoalte ones (on the left). I had to make a second batch of frosting for the chocolate cupcakes. And added a little bit more chocolate and that's why that frosting is a little darker than the frosting on the vanilla cupcakes.

These were however, extremely delicious and moist.We had a neighborhood 4th of July party and I took these for the party. They were all gone and some people were sad that they did not get one!

Here's a little cross section view. Can you see that they were filled all the way to the bottom? Loved it!

So, go ahead, make some yourself and Splurge!

Enjoy! Peace Out!