Recipes

Bake Along #121 – Cafe Mocha Cupcakes

#121 – Cafe Mocha Cupcakes
Cupcakes

Bake Along #121 – Cafe Mocha Cupcakes

These are for those coffee addicts. Most of my chocolate cakes have a hint of coffee which enhances the chocolate flavor. But here, I have gone further more and made the coffee strong that knocks down with a punch. You will be bowled.

These cupcakes are totally light and you need to breath less while you are handling them after baking. The batter is fairly thin and may lose trust on me. But don’t give up

You don’t have a doom on the cupcakes because they are very light. So do not fill more than 2/3rds in your cupcake tins.

I have never been in favor of american buttercream. But today I am going to change my mind. Typically I have also figured out how to work on the right consistency without having to add a lot of icing sugar for stability. This is almost 1:1 ratio of butter to icing sugar and then I am pretty much happy about the texture of the buttercream and there is a trick I have figured out how

But the actual thing that bowled me was my 6 year old son gobbled up one of these and never asked me what is that strong flavor in there. My 12 year old daughter who is still not exposed to coffee yet, loved everything together. Surprising !!
Coffee Family Love

Ingredients:-

Inspired from: My Baking Addiction

  • All-purpose flour – 1 3/4 cups
  • Granulated white sugar – 2 cups
  • Cocoa powder – 3/4 cup
  • Baking soda 2 teaspoons
  • Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Salt – 1 teaspoon
  • 1/4Buttermilk – 1 cup
  • Vegetable cooking oil – 1/2 cup
  • Eggs – 2
  • Vanilla extract – 1 teaspoon
  • Instant coffee powder – 1 1/2 tablespoons
  • Hot water – 1 cup

Mocha Buttercream –

  • Butter – 300 gms, 30 minutes out of fridge, not more
  • Icing sugar – 375 gms, sifted
  • Cocoa powder – 2 tablespoons
  • Instant coffee powder – 1 1/2 teaspoon
  • Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
  • Vanilla extract – 1 teaspoon

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degree C. Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners.

2. Add all the dry ingredients, all-purpose flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt into the bowl of your electric beater. Beat on slow speed until the ingredients are combined well.

3. Add buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla extract in a bowl and use a wire whisk and combine them together.

4. Pour the wet ingredient mixture slowly into the flour mixture, while the beater is still running. Beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes until the ingredients are combined well together and becomes smooth.

5. While the wet and dry ingredients are still beating, boil the hot water along with the instant coffee powder.

6. Pour the hot coffee into the batter slowly and gently while the beater is still running. Beat on medium speed for about 1 minute until the batter comes together.

7. That’s a fairly thin batter. Do not worry.

8. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3rd full with the batter. You will make roughly around 24 cups.
Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for 20 to 22 minutes until the top of the cupcakes become springy to the touch or a tooth pick inserted into the center of one cupcake comes out clean.

9. Cool the cupcakes on wire rack until warm to the touch. Remove the individual cupcakes and place them over the wire rack to cool down completely. Set aside until ready to frost.

Mocha Buttercream –

10. Add the butter into the bowl of the electric beater. The butter should be cold, not at room temperature. So thaw your butter only for 30 minutes. This cold butter will help make the buttercream fluffy with less quantity of icing sugar and keep it stable. Since butter would be cold, you need to beat on medium speed first to break it down to fairly soft. After which increase speed and beat on medium high speed for 3 to 4 minutes until the butter becomes fluffy.

11. Add the vanilla into the soft butter and beat again for 1 minute on medium high speed.

12. The butter should be cold yet fluffy at this stage before adding the rest of the ingredients.

13. Sift together icing sugar, cocoa powder, instant coffee powder and salt.

14. Add the icing sugar mixture into the butter and start to beat on slow speed until the dry ingredients are moistened up to start with.

15. After it has started to moisten up, continue to beat on medium high speed for about 3 to 5 minutes until the the buttercream becomes pale and creamy. The cold butter will help keep the buttercream stable and stiff with just the 1:1 ratio of butter and icing sugar.

16. Fix your favorite nozzle into a piping bag and fill the piping bag with the buttercream and decorate the completely cold cupcakes.

These chocolate buddies with the hint of the burgundy gives me a rush, Every Single Time!!

Just in case, well I should not be saying this, but just in case, you want to skip the coffee, use only the 1 cup of boiling water and ignore the coffee in the rest of the places. Enjoy!!