ultimate chocolate cupcakes in the making.

Recently, I put cook's illustrated's ultimate chocolate cupcakes on my to-bake list, even though I've already found my to-go chocolate cake recipe. It never hurts to be open-minded right?

Unfortunately, in my morning blur-ness, I mistook the bottle of cream or tartar for baking soda. I did not realize it until the cupcakes came out of the oven and I was wondering why they didn't rise much, if not at all.

I was initially disappointed because the batter did not rise to the brim, which made for some aesthetically unappealing cupcakes pre-frosting, but a bigger problem arose when I picked one up and my heart sank like the hockey puck it weighed.

Seriously. I could throw it at someone and he would probably suffer a concussion. Thank god I only made 3 cupcakes.

I couldn't bring myself to waste them, and I reasoned that they might only suffer from a texture problem and still taste fine. So, I frosted them with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting I had left over, arranged some diced strawberries on top and then great, big heaping spoonfuls of vanilla-brown sugar meringue frosting. They were starting to look pretty and I felt much better. Right until I took a bite anyway.

The cake portion was dense and chewy. Like a chewy brownie, but chewier. It could have been the bread flour which yields sturdier cupcakes but it didn't pan out so well in this instance because I practically left out the leavening. To make matters worse, I could taste the metallic acidic cream or tartar. If you eat the cake together with the frosting and all, it probably wouldn't be noticeable but still...

The good thing is, this chocolate cake had good chocolate oomph, and if I'd used baking soda like I should, it would be much fluffier and the added dollop of ganache would ooze through the open crumb and make the cupcake super moist. In this case, my ganache stayed where I plopped it because it had no pores to ooze through...

I truly think that this is a chocolate cupcake recipe worth trying and it would be disrespectful to the folks at cook's illustrated if I end my experience with this recipe here. I will give it another try over the next few days and report back with the real cupcakes and the recipe. Ta ta for now~!