chocoholic pistachio cupcakes

These cupcakes are specially baked for my chocoholic friend, Momo's birthday. I originally planned to surprise her with my homemade chocolate cupcakes on her birthday dinner, but she must be reading my mind and asked me to make her cupcakes!! To make it super chocolatey, indulgent and delicious, I tried to use as much chocolate elements as possible in the recipe. So I come up with the idea of chocolate cakes x chocolate chips x chocolate ganache x chocolate fudge frosting x chocolate sprinkles and some pistachios to add texture and color. To avoid overly sweet, some of the cakes have chocolate ganache and the others have chocolate fudge icing. You can also have a little bit of both on the cakes.

To make her cupcakes look even prettier, I designed some personalized cupcake wrappers and lollipop sticks with her name on it.

Then I just found out it is also my other friend, Andy's birthday! So I made some extra lollipop sticks with his photos. This is the first time I baked two dozen cupcakes! But you can never have enough chocolate cupcakes haha.

Yield 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

Chocolate cupcakes
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Van Houten cocoa powder)

• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 90g butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tbsp
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup milk, at room temperature
• 85g cream cheese, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp mini semisweet chocolate chips (I used Hershey's)

Chocolate ganache  

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

OR

Chocolate fudge frosting

100 g dark chocolate (70%)
150 g butter, softened
4/5 cup icing sugar, sifted
3 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Place rack at the bottom of oven and preheat to 180C. Line cupcake baking pan with 12 cupcake liners.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, set aside.
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and 3/4 cup sugar until pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add the egg and stir until just combined. Gently add half of the flour mixture and stir until just incorporated. Mix in the milk. Add the remaining flour mixture and stir until combined. Set aside.
4. In a small bowl, mix together the cream cheese, 2 tablespoons sugar, and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Fill prepared cupcake liners with enough chocolate batter to just cover the bottom. Add a dollop of the cream cheese filling to each, then top with remaining chocolate batter (cream cheese filling should not be visible).
6. Bake for 20minutes. Let cupcakes stand in the pan for 3 minutes and then remove and allow to cool completely on a rack.
7. For chocolate ganache, place a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water, and whisk together the chocolate and heavy cream. Continue whisking until chocolate is melted and the mixture is thick, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.
8. Dip each cupcake into the ganache, forming an even layer of frosting.
9. For chocolate fudge frosting, place a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water to melt the chocolate and let it cool. In a separate bowl, beat the butter until light and creamy. Add the vanilla extract, icing sugar and cocoa powder and mix until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and beat until creamy. Pipe onto cupcakes.
10. Add chocolate sprinkles and chopped pistachios to decorate.

Chocolate cupcakes and ganache recipe from chocolate cream cheese cupcakes with ganache frosting
Chocolate fudge recipe from chai cupcakes