Mini Chocolate Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream

One last summer dessert!

This recipe is a little complicated, but the cupcakes came out so light and fluffy that I think it was worth the extra effort.

Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

Adapted from "Classic Chocolate Cake" from Williams-Sonoma's Essentials of Baking

Ingredients:
4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped up

1/2 cup boiling water

2-1/2 cup cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup butter (salted)

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

Prep. Line mini muffin pans with mini cupcake wrappers. (This recipe makes about three 24-cupcake pans of mini cupcakes, but you can cut everything in half for less cupcakes.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Step 1 (Preparing the flour mixture, eggs and chocolate mixture). Sift together the flour and baking soda, then set it aside. Separate the eggs, then set them aside. Pour boiling water into a bowl with the chopped-up chocolate. Mix until all the chocolate is melted. Then put the bowl in the fridge so that the mixture will be cool by the time it is added to the batter.

Step 2. Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of the stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, cream them together until light and fluffy (5 min.) Add the egg yolks and the vanilla and mix until just combined. Then slowly mix in the cooled chocolate mixture.

Step 3. With a spatula, fold in a third of the flour mixture. Fold just until it is incorporated. Then fold in half of the buttermilk. Fold in another third of the flour, then the rest of the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour.

Step 4. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites to medium peaks with a whisk. Then fold the egg whites into batter, being careful not to over mix.

Step 5. Scoop batter into the cupcake tins with a melon-baller (or an ice cream scoop for regular-sized cupcakes.) Bake for about 12 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Blackberry Buttercream

Ingredients:

1/3 cup butter

2 cups blackberries (1 cup for frosting, 1 cup for decoration)

about 4 cups powdered sugar

Update: Here is an alternative to adding blackberries, in response to feedback that the frosting was too wet. If you want to avoid adding more sugar to thicken the frosting, you can make a blackberry puree by blending and straining the berries. This will add less liquid to the frosting, so less powdered sugar is needed.

Instructions. Cream butter, then mix in 2 cups powdered sugar. Mix in about 1 cup blackberries (or a little less if your blackberries are really juicy.) Mix in more powdered sugar until frosting is thick enough. (For piping you need a thicker frosting, not quite as thick as toothpaste.)

Piping. This piped with an Ateco #19 tip.

Decoration. Use the second cup of blackberries as decorations on top of the cupcakes!