Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Goat Cheese Frosting

Hey all!

Remember a few days ago when I posted that wonderful goat cheese pasta salad? Well, I made a promise to you guys that I would be posting the sweet yin to the savory yang of my goat cheese feast with Sohini and Kati.

This is me making good on that promise to ya’ll.

I present to you: Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Goat Cheese Frosting!

What? OMG? Is this real?

Yup, they happened.

I can’t take all the credit, cause that would be wrong. The recipe is one that I found on Saveur’s website, but Sohini and I tweaked the frosting a tad.

For the Cupcakes:

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

6 tbsp. cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup hot coffee

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 large egg

You may notice, there is no butter in these cupcakes.

What?

No butter?

But, Kristina, you love butter!

Yea, I love butter, but hey, sometimes you can do without.

For the Frosting:

5 oz. cream cheese, softened

3 oz. goat cheese, softened

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Andddd, you can add a whole vanilla bean, halved lengthwise and scraped if you want, but Sohini’s vanilla bean happened to be really dry and it snapped in half while we were trying to scrape it, so we scraped the idea.

Let me tell ya, the frosting still tasted FANTASTIC.

What to do for the cupcakes:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line cupcake trays

Whisk together all dry ingredients

Add in the coffee, oil and milk

After that is well incorporated, then you can add the vanilla extract and eggs

Bake cupcakes for 20-22 minutes

Let cool

What to do for the frosting:

Beat cream cheese and goat cheese together with an electric mixer, or a very strong arm, until light and fluffy

Add powdered sugar, 1/2 at a time

Once your cuppy cakes have cooled enough, slap that frosting on!

I didn’t have a pastry bag, so I just used a ziplock with the tip cut off

I think goat cheese frosting is my brand new favorite frosting. Its SOOOOOO much tastier than just cream cheese frosting. Don’t get me wrong, I love cream cheese frosting, but the goat cheese lightened up the frosting just enough to not be overwhelming or too sweet.

Yea, these cupcakes were devoured.

Cappuccino Cupcakes

Now I know my last post was on Somoa cupcakes, but I found a recipe for cupcakes on another food blog that involved chocolate and coffee flavored ice cream. As I am the first to admit that I have a coffee consumption problem I just had to try these out. Plus the crust is made out of milks favorite cookie, Oreos. Hot damn.

Obviously the only partner for this job is my trusty baker, Sohini. So we devised a plan to make these and some other treats for our ritualistic bake-offs.

What you want you want to start with is removing the cream center from 15 Oreos. The recipe called for “chocolate sandwich cookies” but in the pictures there was no trace of the cream. So bye-bye cream.

Place cookies in plastic bag and let out your frustration on those little things. Really beat them, they feel no pain.

Melt some butter, just 2 tablespoons

Mmmmmmmmm

Take those crushed cookie bits, toss ’em in a bowl and pour that wonderful, hot butter all over them

MIX MIX MIX

Bake-off Part I: Samoa Cupcakes

As a former Girl Scout (Troop 662, you did me so right!), I was ecstatic when my baking buddy Sohini found a recipe that simulated the glory that is a Samoa cookie. I am a firm believer that Girl Scout cookies should be sold year round, wouldn’t the profit margins be larger? (I know quite a few people whose waistlines would be also) Oh well, until the Scouts come to their senses I have this recipe to simulate the trifecta that is chocolate, caramel and coconut.

The recipe is from a fellow food blogger who I must admit is a way better baker than I. I already have a few of her recipes bookmarked and cannot wait to try them all.

Now as evidenced by the rainbow cake entry, when Sohini and I bake we essentially lock ourselves in the kitchen and go on a baking binge of sorts cooking 2, 3, or 4 recipes in a night.

The Samoas Cupcakes was phase one of this bake-off. Phase two was Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. Chocolate covered Bacon was beyond entertaining as phase three and we finished off the night with Brown Sugar Sprinkled Blueberry Muffins. Obviously more on those later.

After a hefty shopping spree at Safeway we headed home to begin our adventure. We wanted to start the cupcakes first since they were the most time consuming out of the evenings recipe list. Mostly though, I think we just couldn’t wait to taste the finished product.

First up, the actual cupcake. This was the first time I included sour cream into a cake and I was a little skeptical. Let me reassure anyone who shared my concerns, they were the moistest most delicious tasting chocolate cupcakes I have ever eaten in my whole life.

While we assembled and divided the ingredients up, the oven was preheated to 350 degrees and the cupcake trays were lined with a mix of fabulous little silver wrappers and sports themed wrappers – for variety.

I want to apologize in advance for the poorer quality photos. I took a few photos and then my camera died, I was at Sohini’s house and didn’t have my charger with me so we used her iPhone because it had a flash. Please bear with me.

The first thing you want to do is combine 1 cup sour cream and 1 teaspoon baking soda in a small bowl

In another bowl sift and combine 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup of cocoa powder, like the sour cream set this bowl aside. It day in the sun is coming.

In yet another bowl mix together 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), 1 cup granulated sugar, and 1/2 cup brown sugar

The butter is glowing, like the holy gift it is.