Chocolate-Spice Cupcakes

These beautiful upside-down cakes were the latest baking assignment for the Martha Stewart Cupcakes Club!  What I've really come to love about this baking club is learning a variety of techniques in palatable, cupcake-sized bites!

No cupcake liners are used in this recipe, just a greasing of butter and a dusting of cocoa powder "flour".  Now when the directions say butter, do not try to take a shortcut and spray the tins with cooking spray.  Once you dust the tins with cocoa powder, you will end up with a gooey, chocolate-y mess.  Trust me on this one.  Properly prepared tins should look like the one above.

This chocolate spice cake calls for molasses.  After reading a couple of online reviews, I reduced the amount of molasses to 1/3 cup and increased the brown sugar to 1 cup.  I also added vanilla, because vanilla just makes everything taste better!  Before adding the molasses to the batter, I added combined it with the hot water/baking soda mixture.  It makes it easier to stir.

Here's the batter before baking....

..... and after.

It doesn't get much of a dome which makes it perfect for inverting on a platter.

I had a little bit of trouble with the ganache.  Apparently you can't substitute 2% milk for heavy cream.  Go figure.  

Not to worry.  I now have some really thick and creamy chocolate milk to add to my coffee in the morning!  My final ganache recipe looked something like this:  4 ounces of chocolate chips, 2 tablespoon of vegetable shortening and 1 tablespoon of corn syrup.  I had no heavy cream.  It was a little thicker than the glossy elixir pictured in the cookbook, but 5 out of 6 family members claimed it was divine.  

The sixth family member doesn't like cinnamon. Or raisins. Or peanut butter. Or pumpkin pie.  I would claim she was adopted, except that I was there and she made me VERY, VERY sick!  All that being said, it made holding her in my arms all the sweeter.

Here's my version of of Martha's Chocolate-Spice Cupcakes.  To bake with us, look for next month's cupcake selection HERE!  Thanks to Julie at Little Bit of Everything for this month's selection!  Check out her blog for some amazing ganache!


Chocolate-Spice Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

5 tablespoons butter, room temperature, plus more for tins
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder, plus more for tins
1 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup boiling water
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup unsulphured molasses

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Brush a standard muffin tin with butter; just with cocoa powder, tapping out excess.  
2. Stir baking soda into the boiling water.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. With an electric mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy.  Beat in the egg and vanilla.
5. Add molasses to the water mixture and stir into the butter/sugar mixture, beating until combined.  
6. Add the flour mixture and beat until well-combined.
7. Divide batter evenly among prepared cupcake tins and bake for about 14 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean, rotating half-way.
8. Cool for 15 minutes and invert onto a rack and let cool completely.
9. To finish, place inverted cupcakes on a wire rack and spoon glaze over cupcakes.
10. If you can find it, garnish with candied ginger before serving.

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