CHOCOLATE PEAR CUPCAKES

 Mission, birthday goodies... My friend Clara is having her 25th birthday party today and I offered to bake a sweet treat to help her celebrate 25 years of flying around the sun.

I got to thinking of what I was going to make, initially I wanted to bake a cake but since there had to be enough sweet treats for 15 people and the cake had to be transported to a restaurant, I thought cupcakes would be more manageable, not to mention much cuter.

Following the simple directions of CHOCOLATE I started riffling around for a nice chocolate cake which wasn't too dense or cloying. I settled on a devil's food cake which is really quite awesome because it is chocolatey yet light, perfect for a syruped pear filling and buttery swiss merengue buttercream. (I think you can basically do anything with a devil's food, it's like the vanilla cake version of chocolate.)

Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake


makes 24 cupcakes adapted from Chockylit

2 cups flour


1 1/2 cups sugar


1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp coffee grinds

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder


1-1/2 cups milk


1/2 cup oil

2 teaspoons vanilla


2 eggs

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 F or 175 C and get your cupcake tin ready.

Place the sugar, eggs, vanilla, oil and milk into a bowl, whisk until combined.

Sift in the remainder of the ingredients, stir until just incorporated.

Fill up your cupcake wrapper until 3/4 full and bake for 18-22 minutes.

Enriched Chocolate Swiss Merengue Buttercream

frosts 24 cupcakes

6 egg whites

2 egg yolks

1 1/4 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

250 grams unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into pieces

3 tbsp cocoa

1tsp vanilla

Place sugar and egg whites in a heat-proof bowl. Set the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, and whisk until sugar has dissolved and egg whites are hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. 

Take the bowl off the heat and using en electric whisk, beat the whites on high until mixture has cooled completely and formed stiff and glossy peaks, about 10 minutes, drop in your pinch of salt.

Add the butter, one piece at a time, and beat until incorporated after each addition. Don't worry if the buttercream appears curdled after all the butter has been added, it will become smooth again with continued beating. 

When the buttercream has come together, drop in the egg yolks and beat until they are incorporated, this makes your frosting richer and creamier.

Flavour with vanilla and cocoa.

The frosting can be used immediately or refrigerated for 3 days.

Assemby

Cupcakes

2 whole syruped pear diced finely

Chocolate frosting

Cut a pyramid section out of the top of the cupcakes, pull out the little pyramid and slice off the pointy bit. This will give you space for the filling.

Now fill the cupcakes with the diced pears and top up with a bit of syrup. Place the little pyramid hat back on and frost with your chocolate frosting.

To decorate sprinkle some hundreds & thousands or press a sliver of pear into the top.