More cupcakes this week. This time, I returned to something my mom used to make all the time—black bottomed cupcakes. I haven’t made them in about 2 years so I forgot how awesomely good they are. This is made even better by how easy they are to make. So I’m going to post the recipe, because more than one person at work asked for it, and everyone should be able to make these as there’s no real trick to it.

I know Starbucks has these sometimes, but I’ve tried one of theirs, and as with almost every kind of cake they have, they make it far too sweet and ruin the chocolate and cheesecake flavour balance. Do yourself a favour and make your own. Not only will it be tastier, but also far, far cheaper.

Black bottomed cupcakes

For the chocolate cake:

• 1 1/2 c flour
• 1 c sugar
• 1/4 c cocoa
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 c water
• 1/2 c oil
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla

For the cheesecake topping:

• 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese  (And don’t mess around with anything that’s not full fat.)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 c sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt

Optional:

• Chocolate chips or bits of a dark chocolate bar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
2. In one bowl, mix all chocolate cake ingredients together (and no, it’s not a mistake, there’s no egg in the chocolate cake bit). It’s probably best if you do this with some kind of beater, but if you like your baking to exhaust you, you could whisk it up by hand.
3. In another bowl, beat together all the cheesecake topping ingredients.
4. Line a 12 muffin tin with cupcake cases and fill each about halfway with chocolate cake mix.
5. Top each with a tablespoon or two of cheesecake mix. Try to drop this in the middle of the chocolate cake mix. It will look kind of like it’s sinking, but don’t worry about it.
6. Top each cupcake with a few chocolate chips or bits of dark chocolate if you want to.
7. Bake for around 15-18 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. The chocolate cake part is extremely dense, so it will probably look a bit more moist than you’re used to seeing with other chocolate cake.

In general, the cheesecake bit is supposed to stay kind of in the middle of the cake bit on top. Mine was a bit runnier than usual this time so it ended up around the outside of the top. Either way, it tastes just as good, so don’t fuss too much over what it looks like.

These are ok right out of the oven, but they’re the best when they’re cold, so if you can resist long enough, wait til they cool, pop them in the fridge for an hour, then eat one. Tasty times.