White Chocolate Pomegranate Cupcakes

I may have said this in this past but this time I really really mean it. These are hands down the best cupcakes I've baked. Free Spirit Bloggers are into their 4th month together (already!) and Lataji chose this month's theme. She gave us all a choice to pick a number between 1-12 and revealed secret ingredients to work with. Mine were white chocolate and pomegranates.

The timing couldn't be more perfect because I had this bar of white chocolate I had bought from Tokyo a year back and since I was in India, I could buy a pomegranate and bring it back with me! Things fell in place beautifully and one Saturday evening, these cupcakes were born.

I searched a lot for a good white chocolate cupcake recipe and although there were quite a few that came up, I finally nailed one from Epicurious. Although a lot of the reviews said the cupcake sank in the middle, got ruined, etc, I had a nice feeling about it. I used a lower baking temperature and they came out ridiculously well. The coconut milk in the batter was intriguing too, and its my first time baking cupcakes with coconut milk in the batter!

The pomegranates gave a nice crunch to the texture and added to the appeal of the otherwise dull-looking cupcakes. One word of caution here. I only had brown sugar in hand so my cupcakes are beige in colour. If you use regular white sugar like you are supposed to, the cupcakes will be white and gorgeous like white chocolate cupcakes are supposed to look.

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Pomegranates
Makes 20 cupcakes
Loosely adapted from Epicurious

Ingredients:
8 oz / 240 gm white chocolate
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup regular white sugar
3 egg whites
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
1/4 cup fresh pomegranate seeds

*Optional Mascarpone frosting recipe below. 

How I Made It:

1. Preheat oven to 320F / 180 C. Line cupcake pans with liners and set aside.

2. Melt white chocolate by placing it in a bowl over another bowl of boiling water and stirring frequently, or in a microwave at low heat until just melted and smooth.

3. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and vanilla in large bowl until blended. Add hot white chocolate to sugar mixture; stir to combine. Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with coconut milk in 2 additions, beating batter just to combine between additions.

4. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in a bowl until soft peaks form. Be careful not to overbeat. To check done-ness, I lift the whisk and see if a soft peak forms and gently collapses back into the mixture. Gently fold egg white mixture into batter in 3 additions.

5. Pour batter into the lined cupcake pans until 3/4 filled. Bake in preheated oven for about 25 mins or until the cupcakes don't stick to a skewer passed through their middle.

6. Cool completely and frost if desired. I thought the cupcakes were a bit too plain so decided to whip up a very simple frosting with some mascarpone cheese I had in hand.

Mascarpone Frosting Recipe

Whisk together 6 tbsp mascarpone cheese, 4 tbsp milk, and 14 tbsp icing sugar. Adjust each of the ingredients until the frosting is of pouring consistency yet not too watery. Pour over completely cooled cupcakes and place some pomegranate seeds over the frosting before serving.

The cupcakes lasted me four days, refrigerated. 

Black Forest Cookies Recipe

I have quite a few recipes bookmarked from The Purple Foodie but these Black Forest Cookies have been on top of the list for ages. I had trouble finding dried cherries and then gave up looking for them and substituted with dried blueberries instead. Who is to know, right?



What I absolutely LOVED about these cookies is that they turned out almost exactly like the Double Chocolate Chip cookies from Subway. Raise your hands if you love those. Yep, me too!! So this is a total win in that sense.

Dried Bluberries

But, it was sweet. It was very sweet. It was so sweet that even my sweet tooth were nudging me and asking what the heck I was thinking eating three of these in one shot. So I had to have half at a time.



 Not really. Do I look like someone who can eat just half a cookie and stop at that? Nope. I am not that someone.



Anyway, these were very easy to bake up, the only catch being, you need to refrigerate the batter for a few hours for it to firm up.

A side story here is, I was baking these cookies when my old oven just refused to turn on. There was a loose contact and the current batch in the oven were turning all gooey and running over each other, and that batter went to waste. That's when I decided this is the last straw, took a cab to the nearest kitchenware store and bought myself a new oven! I came home and baked the rest of the batter after that. That reminds me, I am yet to share pics and details of my new oven. Stay tuned to MMKT for that!



Even then, mine got super runny before I baked them and so the cookies were super flat. Didn't stop me from eating them though, they were really good!

Black Forest Cookies
Adapted from: The Purple Foodie
Makes 12 large cookies

Ingredients:
40gm / 1/3 cup all purpose flour or maida
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
8 oz / 225gm baking chocolate bar (semi sweet or bitter sweet will do)
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1/3 cup dried blueberries
5 tbsp/75gm butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
A pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter)

How I Made It:

1. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate bar (broken into pieces) and the butter until smooth and shiny. Set aside.

2. Whisk flour, salt and baking powder together. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and both sugars for about 5 mins (if using electric beater) or 10-12 mins if doing by hand. The mixture should be pale and thick.

4. Add the cooled butter-chocolate mixture and the vanilla to this and mix until just combined. Don't overbeat. Add the flour mixture to this and mix until all the flour disappears into the batter. Again, don't overbeat, just combine gently.

5. Next, mix in both the chocolate chips and the dried blueberries. The batter will be a bit runny.

6. Refrigerate this for 6 hours or overnight.

7. Preheat oven to 375F / 190C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and use an ice-cream scoop to scoop out the batter and place on the baking sheet at a distance of 2". If baking in multiple batches, return the batter to the fridge immediately after filling up one sheet.

8. Bake for about 12-15 mins until the top looks crackly. Cool and store in air-tight jars for upto 3 days.

Note: I have given the adjusted amounts of sugar since I found my cookies way too sweet. Adapt according to your taste.

Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting - Step by Step Recipe

In a recent survey on the left sidebar of this blog, I had asked what makes you visit me. Is it easy recipes, step by step recipes, the food pictures, food photography tips or anything else. A vast majority of you liked the step by step recipes so I dug up this one from the drafts. I made it when I was going for this barbeque party and I volunteered to bring dessert.

The basic recipe is from JoyofBaking. I changed the frosting recipe to make it more colourful. I also wanted something I can carry with me and just spread on at the party since packing it after frosting would just make it a mess. Also, I don't have icing bags or pipes!

So, let's get started on those cupcakes, shall we?

A line up of ingredients required for the chocolate cupcakes.

The first thing to do is mix 1/2 cup (50 grams) cocoa powder and 1 cup (240 ml) boiling hot water until the cocoa powder is well incorporated. Set aside and let it cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, mix 1 1/3 cups (175 grams) all purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt. You can use a sieve for this but I just used a spoon and mixed it for 2-3 mins until combined well.

Now its time to bring out the butter, sugar and eggs. Combine 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter at room temperature, 1 cup (200 grams) powdered white sugar and beat well. If you have an electric beater, beat this mixture for a good 3-4 mins. If using a hand beater, beat for 7 mins.

Then add 2 eggs, one at a time, and mix well. Also mix in 2 tsp vanilla extract at the end.

Add this mixture, little at a time, to the flour mixture and mix well in one direction, without any lumps.

I think it would be better if you add the dry mixture to the wet one little at a time. This should prevent lumps better. The mixture above took over 1o mins to be mixed properly without lumps.

Next, add the cooled chocolate-water mixture to the above (you can add this in one shot or little by little) and mix well for another 5 mins.

That's when we get our chocolate cupcake batter!

Grease muffin/cupcake liners and place in the tray.

Pour the batter up to more 3/4 of the way. I could have poured more batter than this because at the end, my cupcake wasn't as chubby as I wanted it to be.

To Prepare the Frosting while the Cupcakes are Getting Baked

Melt 1/2 cup white chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. What you see above is a picture of when I microwaved them. Don't do that, the bottom of the bowl will burn and the whole thing won't melt like you expect!

Add milk, butter, sugar and salt to this and combine well.


Slather frosting on the cupcakes when they are done and bite!

Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting
Makes: 15 medium cupcakes
Source: JoyofBaking

What I Used:

For Chocolate Cupcakes

1/2 cup (50 grams) cocoa powder
1 cup (240 ml) boiling hot water
1 1/3 cups (175 grams) all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup (200 grams) white sugar, powdered
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

For White Chocolate Frosting

White chocolate chips or bars - 1/2 cup melted in a bowl over a bowling pan of water
Butter - 2 tbsp
Icing sugar - 1 tbsp (optional)
Milk - 2 tbsp or enough to make it spread-able
Salt - a pinch

How I Made It:

In a small bowl stir until smooth the boiling hot water and the cocoa powder. Let cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Then in the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth.

Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients little at a time, combining well without lumps. Don't over-mix.

Next, add in the vanilla extract. Then add the cooled cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly butter, or line 16 muffin cups with paper liners.

Fill each muffin cup two-thirds full with batter and bake for about 16-20 minutes or until risen and toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean.

White Chocolate Frosting

1. Melt 1/2 cup white chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.

2. Add milk, butter, sugar and salt to this and combine well.