Sinful dark chocolate & raspberry cupcakes

Hooray!  I have an internet connection again!  This is CookSister coming to you live from Geneva, so do pardon me if this post is not as long and detailed as those that you are used to.  My excuse is that the sun is shining, and the city is calling – far too nice a day to spend blogging!  All the same, a woman has responsibilities, and I am aware that the WTSIM deadline for this month is looming… so here is my own contribution.

They say opposites attract. Think of salty aged Pecorino and sweet honey.  Of crisp toast and runny egg yolk.  Of salty anchovies and sweet caramelised onions in a pissaladiere.    Of cold ice cream and hot chocolate sauce.

They could have a point.

This is how my train of thought was chugging along in relation to this month’s theme of berried treasure.  Berries as a group are probably one of the tartest fruit families.  Unless they are VERY ripe, all of them retain an appealing tang which makes them the perfect, balanced partner for sweet stuff.  An absolutely classic combo is raspberries and white chocolate – think cheesecakes or muffins.  But I had another idea in mind – something even more decadent and sinful. What about raspberries and dark chocolate?  Since my muffin pan has so far only been used for ridiculously healthy muffins, I thought it was time to take it for a walk on the wild side (so to speak!) and make sinful chocolate raspberry cupcakes.

I can’t recommend these enough.  The recipe is the result of two different ones that I combined:  I liked the chocolate that one used but not the raspberry preserves; while I liked the fresh raspberries the other used, but not the cocoa powder – so I mixed & matched.  They are dead easy, the texture is moist and light (lightness probably aided by the extra baking soda I added) and the raspberries hidden in the centre means that they are never overwhelmingly sweet,  But they will make you fell very, very naughty!

Other bloggers baking with chocolate include:

• Barbara and her Pinot Noir chocolate brownies
• Margot and her Murzynek (traditional Polish cake with chocolate glaze)
• Sarah’s chocolate whoopie pies

SINFUL DARK CHOCOLATE & RASPBERRY CUPCAKES (makes 12 large cupcakes)

Ingredients:

113g butter (preferably unsalted)
75g dark chocolate, broken into large pieces
1 cup soft brown sugar
1 tsp instant coffee powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
2/3 cup water
1 cup fresh raspberries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and flour the cups of a 12-cup muffin pan (or use paper muffin cups like I did).

Melt the butter in a heat proof bowl over a pot of boiling water.  When it is half melted, add the chocolate,  Remove from heat when the chocolate is completely melted and stir to check for lumps.  Mix in the brown sugar, coffee powder and vanilla essence.  When these are fully mixed, mix in the eggs.

Sieve the baking soda into the mixture (to prevent lumps) and stir well. Stir in the flour and beat the mixture until all ingredients are well incorporated and the batter is thick, then stir in the water a little at a time.  Make sure the liquid is entirely absorbed into the bater..

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each cup about half full. Place 3 raspberries on the surface of each cup – they will sink into the batter.  Fill each cup almost to the top, place another fresh raspberry on top and bake until each cupcake is firm and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean – about 25 minutes

Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then carefully lift each cupcake from the pan and let cool to room temperature.  Or, if using paper cups like me, you can move them from the pan to a rack almost immediately.

As I mentioned, this is my entry for this month’s Waiter, There’s Something in My… event, which I am hosting and which has berries as its theme.  As I am unlikely to get to the roundup tomorrow, You can still send me your entries until Monday 7 July.