Black Bottom Cupcakes

I’d never actually heard of black bottom cupcakes until a few years ago. Whenever we’d have a food day at work, my boss would bring them in. Somehow I never managed to eat one, but I got the recipe from her and made them for the first time last year for Valentine’s Day. I made them yesterday for Alex’s birthday.

The recipe is super easy. The hardest part is remembering not to overfill them (I tell you this from experience, I did overfill the little cupcakes). You start with a chocolate batter and add a spoonful of a cream cheese and chocolate filling.

Cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Filling:

• 4 oz. cream cheese (half a package)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 oz. chocolate chips (I used white chocolate)
• 1/2 egg, or a tablespoon of water
• dash salt

I am making a note to melt the chips the next time I make these cupcakes.

I mixed the cupcake ingredients together by hand, and it comes together pretty quickly. The batter is pretty thin and it makes a really light cupcake, a great balance to the cream cheese filling. I mixed the cream cheese in a mixer. I didn’t have any eggs as I haven’t been using them lately, so I just added a bit of water to help the mixture come together. I’d say it turned out just fine.

Fill the cupcake tins halfway with the batter, then add a teaspoon of the filling mix. If you add too much, the filling will ooze out over the cupcake pan. No, I don’t have any photos of what that looks like.

The “recipe” I got was really just a list of ingredients, with no cooking times or instructions about whether to melt the chocolate chips. I baked these at 350F for about 12 minutes for the little cupcakes and 15-20 for the big cupcakes. These were good, and much appreciated by the birthday boy.