Little Ivy Cakes

Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes with Raspberries

These Cupcakes turned out really good and were very, very simple to make so I thought I would share them with you real quick.
So, a while back a sweet co-worker of mine gave me this awesome book, The Artful Cupcake. There are a lot of crazy-complicated cupcakes in this book and I will most likely never make all of them. But, while browsing through it for inspiration the other night, I found this manageable base-recipe for chocolate buttermilk cupcakes and a pretty frosting design idea. I happened to have a lot of buttermilk left over from my red velvet cheesecakes and a bag of Trader Joe's frozen raspberries. Crazy how it all falls into place sometimes.

Here's my adapted recipe:
Chocolate Buttermilk and Raspberry Cupcakes
(I was able to make 18 regular size cupcakes)
1/ 2/3 cup AP flour
1 Tsp baking soda
1/2 Tsp salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 sugar
1 cup buttermilk (This time I did use the real thing but, if you don't have it, let 1 cup regular milk sit with a couple tablespoons of lemon juice for 10 mins.)
1 egg
1/2 cup veggie oil
3 tbs vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
Lavender sugar *optional*
 Cupcake Fun:
-Preheat oven to 350 and line your cupcake pan with pretty cupcake liners.
-Lightly break up the raspberries and toss with 1 tsp lavender sugar. Set aside.
-Sift flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, and sugar together and whisk until completely mixed.
-Then add the buttermilk, veggie oil, and vanilla and blend well with an electric mixer.
-Fill cupcake liners about half way. Sprinkle raspberries into the batter and with a spoon lightly push them into the batter.
-Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean when stuck in the middle.
-Let cool before frosting.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8 oz package cream cheese, room temp
1 stick butter, room temp
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 to 3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted (or not)
1 tbs vanilla extract
2 tsp vanilla bean paste (for specks)
1/4 cup raspberry puree
 Frosting Fun:
-Cream butter and cream cheese until smooth.
-Add yogurt, sugar, vanillas, and raspberry puree
-Whip until creamy and light.

Chocolate Stripes:
5-6 tbs semi sweet chocolate chips
2 tbs butter
1 tbs light corn syrup (optional)
Chocolate Fun:
-Melt chocolate and butter in a glass bowl over a pot of 1 cup simmering water.
-Once chocolate and butter is melted, mix with a spatula until smooth and take off heat.
-Mix in corn syrup
-Let cool  for about 7 minutes and then fill a pastry bag with the chocolate and cut a small tip from the bag or use a small round piping tip. Pipe decorative stripes with the chocolate onto the frosted cupcakes.

 Now back to battling tuiles.
THE END!