Week 19 Cupcake - Beatty's Chocolate Cake in Cupcake Form

This past week completely got away from me.  Not only did I not get my posts done on Thursday and Friday like I try to do these cupcakes didn't come into existence until Friday instead of Wednesday like normally scheduled.  I had to cupcake recipes picked out for this week and next but they ended up being a little more complicated than I wanted to fool with on Friday afternoon.  Instead I went to my new and very dear friend Ina and her cookbook Barefoot Contessa at Home which is quickly becoming my favorite of hers.  In this book Ina makes her version of a dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate icing and I decided they would make perfect cupcakes

1. Source: Barefoot Contessa at Home but it is also on the Food Network website

2. Ease of Recipe (1 being cake mix/canned icing - 5 tons of steps and very time consuming): 3.  It's not the simplest chocolate cupcake with frosting because it is Ina after all but it's pretty straightforward.

3. Changes Made:  I left the egg yolk out of the frosting because it made me a little nervous.  I am a child of the salmonella awareness age after all and even though it would be somewhat cooked from the melted chocolate I just wouldn't have been comfortable feeding it to the Tornado.  Also Ina intended this for a cake not a cupcake.

4. Problems:  The frosting is a little runny.  It would be great for a cake but is not ideal for a cupcake.  It's hard to consider that a real problem though because if I had used the recipe as intended it would've been perfect.  I do wonder if the yolk would have removed this problem completely.

5.  Overall Impression:  The texture of the cake is beyond perfection.  This is definitely a cake for a true chocolate lover with it's rich chocolate-y taste.  My only problem was that I thought the coffee flavor was more prominent than I expected in the frosting.  If I made it again I would probably cut it down to a 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon.

6. Quantity:  24

7. Make Again?: Probably not in cupcake form but this in true cake form would be divine.