HOW I RUINED CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES IN 6 EASY STEPS
<----Wrong, I'm sure!
<---See Ya!
I’m in baking mode. The holidays
are upon us and my urge to create is blossoming. My kiddies requested
a Halloween cake for the upcoming holiday. They wanted the outside to
be a jack o’ lantern and the inside orange, vanilla and chocolate
cake. Okay. Somehow I thought I had 4 cake pans, but I only had 3 of
the same size. Since I was coloring one of the vanilla batches
orange, that left me with excess chocolate. I decided to make
cupcakes with the remaining batter.
Fast forward all the prepping and
mixing and I am ready to pour my mix into the cupcake pan. After
inserting the cupcake liners, my daughter suggests putting Halloween
Oreos in the batter.
I said screw it why not? My
daughter started putting cookies in the bottom of the liners. I
didn’t think it was a good idea because I figured they would cook
incorrectly. I don’t know…somehow it just seemed wrong. I only
let her put a few at the bottom; I took the remaining cupcakes and
added a layer of batter on the bottom to give the cookies a buffer.
1.
2. 
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3. 
I put them in the oven at 350
degrees. I set the timer for 15 minutes and started cleaning up the
kitchen. I swear after about 5 minutes I smelled cupcakes, but something
seemed odd. They smelled like they were done. After about 10 minutes, the almost burning chocolate smell was getting stronger.
When the timer went off I quickly took them out of the oven. For the
most part they looked good, however I smelled a strong burnt
chocolate scent, so I let them cool a few minutes and started checking
them.
4. 
I could immediately see some of
them had a scorched bottom. I separated those few and started to
frost them. I figured if the tops were ok that’s’ all that
mattered. I whipped out my piping bag of orange frosting and began to
decorate them. I even had the nerve to garnish them with a cookie, like I didn't know in the back of my mind that these were a disaster.
5. 
6.
6.
Of course you know I had to test
one. I was curious about the burnt ones so I started there. Yikes! They were horrible! The
burnt flavor was throughout the cupcake so you couldn’t just cut
the bottom off and enjoy it. The cookies were torched inside the
cupcake.
I hesitantly decided to test one
of the ones that weren’t scorched on the bottom. These are the ones
where I added batter to the bottom of the cupcake liner. They
appeared to be ok. WRONG! They weren’t as bad as the first batch
but the cookie still burnt up inside. I have a list of reasons why I
think this didn’t work. Oven temperature, oven too crowded, batter too thick, I left them in too long, or I just didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Don't get me wrong, I have conquered cupcakes before. As a matter of fact, dozens of times. Something sinister was amidst here. There were 3 cupcakes where the batter was slightly topped off a
little more. They were soft and didn’t smell burnt. The Devil's Food trickery. I didn’t test
them. Don’t ask me why. :/
<----Wrong, I'm sure!
When my daughter woke up and saw 3
leftover cupcakes she was still excited. Of course she asked where
the other 9 went.
<---See Ya!
When I gave her the cupcake she
bit into it and just made a face.
I knew it. She let the cookie roll
out of her mouth into her napkin. She said “Mom, this is gross.” She then asked if I was trying to
kill her. She’s 6. That was all. I was so annoyed that I had to
take this baking ass whipping... I was already annoyed because I was
having trouble with the jack o' lantern cake. While cutting out the
shapes for the face, the black fondant stained my hands so it made my
white fondant look dirty. I realize this baking journey is trial and
error. More errors than triumphs. However, I refuse to let anything with the name "Devil's Food" beat me!