Heaven and Hell Cupcakes

Oh. My. God (no pun intended). You know how every once in a while you’ll hear someone say “don’t try this at home”? Yeah, well this applies here. In fact you might want to even close out of this post completely just in case you might be tempted to make these. Basically- I took an already challenging and intricate recipe and made it even harder, more tedious, and more expensive. These things literally caused me to spend an ENTIRE day in the kitchen.

Devil’s Food Cupcakes

Martha Stewart

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
3/4 cup hot water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream, room temperature


Preheat oven to 350°. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners
Whisk together cocoa and hot water until smooth
In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt
Melt butter with sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to combine. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat until mixture is cooled, 4 to 5 minutes
Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed
Add vanilla, then cocoa mixture, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low
Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the sour cream, and beating until just combined after each.
Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three- quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 15 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely

Don’t get me wrong, I love a Martha Stewart recipe as much as the next person. But she can never get the recipe yield right! I always end up with so much extra batter. So rather than throw it all away, I broke out my mini tart pan and made miniature devil’s food cupcakes (just cut the baking time in half)

Soooo cute!!

Angel Food Cupcakes

Annie’s Eats

1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
12 large egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar


Preheat the oven to 375° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners
In a small mixing bowl, sift together the flour, 3/4 cup of the sugar and the salt; set aside
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites with the vanilla and cream of tartar on medium-high speed until soft-medium peaks form
Gradually add the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold in the dry ingredients using a rubber spatula, being careful not to deflate the batter
Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners and bake for 12-15 minutes or until light golden
Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

This is where everything started to go downhill. My egg whites just would NOT whip up. And it’s not like it was a little mistake either, it was an entire carton of eggs down the drain. Ugh at least attempt number 2 was successful…

Again, the recipe yield was off and I ended up with enough batter to resort to my mini tart pans. I was beginning to think this was a Martha Stewart recipe! (…okay corny joke over)

Peanut Butter Mousse

Epicurious

1 1/2 lbs. cream cheese, at room temperature
4 cups smooth peanut butter, at room temperature
3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 1/2 cups heavy cream


In large bowl, beat cream cheese, peanut butter, and confectioners’ sugar on medium until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes
Put cream into a large bowl and beat on high until stiff peaks form
Fold cream into peanut butter mixture; refrigerate

I’ve always been a HUGE fan of peanut butter, I mean I used to just eat it straight out of the jar. But after baking all day and making this diesel mousse recipe, the smell of it made me completely nauseous. Plus there was just wayyyy too much of it, I should have cut the recipe in half if that. Yet I decided to skip the refrigeration and just begin assembling these beasts. There was nothing “heavenly” about them anymore!!

All I did was cut both cupcakes in half horizontally and stacked the layers on top of each other beginning with the bottom of the devil’s food cupcake and ending with the top of the angel food cupcake, with a thin layer of the peanut butter mousse in between. This is exactly what the Heaven and Hell cake calls for but with layers of cake rather than annoying little cupcake layers (you can read the actual cake recipe here)

They kind of ended up looking like a reverse Big Mac. My dad actually asked what “mini burgers” were doing in the fridge

From here, they went straight into the freezer. I only did a dozen before I got totally sick of them. Plus the other pan of angel food cupcakes didn’t turn out so hot

Chocolate Ganache

Epicurious

2 lbs. milk chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups heavy cream


Place chocolate in medium bowl
Bring cream to boil in 2-qt. pan
Pour cream over chocolate; melt for 5 minutes
Stir chocolate and cream. Cover; rest for 4 hours

Ta daaaa! The ganache started hardening pretty quickly which was better for me when I was frosting them (even though my hands still ended up completely brown). The cake recipe calls for sticking it in the fridge for another couple of hours before slicing just to firm up, but I didn’t bother for that long since they’re so small. The torture is over! Now on to the GIANT mess in the kitchen…

Tagged: cake flour, chocolate, cream cheese, egg whites, ganache, peanut butter, sour cream