Black Forest Cupcakes

What's better than good food and great company? Well, it is pretty simple - Good food, great company and LOTS of chocolate. And, what makes all this even better? Serving all this to a bunch of wide-eyed toddlers eagerly waiting at the door as you walk in with a box of freshly baked and frosted Black Forest Cupcakes. Pure joy, I say! That is precisely what I did for my little sonny S, when he moved from his playschool to prep-school early this September. I know, I know it is over a month now - How in the blue blazes did I not post it so long? Oh well, better late than never, eh?

The kids (and the class teachers) enjoyed this treat. I sure wish you would, too. Go on and make them. These gorgeous babies are only a whisk away!


Ingredients
For Cupcakes
1.5 Cups All purpose flour
1.5 Cup Powdered/Confectioners Sugar
1.5 Cups Unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 Extra Large eggs
1.25 tsp Vanilla extract
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
5 tbsp Cocoa powder
1/3 cup Whole Milk
Pinch of Salt

For Assembly and Decoration
15 Maraschino cherries in syrup (without stems)
1/2 Cup of the syrup in which the cherries are bottled
1 Cup Whipped Cream
Method

- Preheat oven to 350F and line cupcake/muffin pan with baking cups
- Cream together butter and sugar and set aside
- In a large bowl, sift together all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder.
- Repeat the sifting process into another large bowl to make sure you have a homogenous mixture of all these dry ingredients
- Now, break eggs into another bowl and beat until fluffy/frothy (about 10-15 minutes) and doubled in quantity
- Pour the beaten eggs into the creamed sugar-butter mixture and beat again until well mixed
- Add the vanilla essense to this wet mixture
- Slowly pour and fold in small quantities of this wet mixture into the dry ingredients using a flat spatula, as you combine it all together to form a smooth batter.
- This batter may be thick, so pour in the milk gradually until such a point where you are easily able to maneuver your spatula in the same and batter is creamy
- Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake/muffin pan (My muffins are of about 1 3/4" base diameter) and bake for about 30 or until a toothpick comes out clean when pierced in the center of a cupcake
- Once baked, allow to cool completely
- Place cupcakes on a large plate
- Drizzle each cupcake with about 1tbsp of Cherry syrup
- Using a star nozzle, frost each one with whipped cream
 
Makes 15 drool-worthy cupcakes.

This batch, I send virtually, to adorn Madhuri's Chocolate Fest as she celebrates one year of Cook-curry Nook.