My wife love cupcakes. It was her birthday. I do have the ambition to bake quality cakes one day. And there’s no way in hell this cheap-ass is going to splurge at a local cupcake shop on $3 cupcakes – no way, no how. I made two dozen – so…roughly…$72 worth of cupcakes? As if. I respect the entrepreneurial spirit tremendously, but can’t see the business model supporting this many cupcake shops – ESP in this economy.

ANYWAY. Where do you go when you need ideas for a solid cupcake? Here, of course. The request was for this one. With the vanilla bean cream cheese icing from this one. I undercooked them quite a bit and they were more like moelleux, so I filled the crater with home-made raspberry jam prior to icing them. Super rich, super tasty – but needed some work. So the next day I baked another batch, longer this time, and they were far better. The recipe recommends holding rich chocolate cakes overnight for improved quality – and man are they right. The next day, that second batch rocked.

So if you’re ever in the need for a heavy chocolate cake-y and cream cheese fix – this is a pretty wonderful place to start.