Golden Chocolate Cupcakes

When I saw Ann's Mini Golden Chocolate Cakes, I was rather enchanted. The two toned mini cakes looked very appealing, one layer of chocolate and one layer of golden cheese. I had been wanting to use the cheese powder I purchased a few months ago and I thought this was the perfect opportunity. 

Unbeknownst to me, I was rather careless and did not check the ingredients in the cheese powder carefully. I only discovered to my horror that it contained onion powder after I baked the cakes. Yarrrgh!!!! (cilaka!) No wonder the cupcakes smelt a bit strange even though they tasted rather good. Onion and chocolate, no go! The recipients of the cupcakes were very polite, no complaints received so far. ghee...hee...hee...hee....

Whatever it was, I attempted the cakes again the next day because I was very impressed with the taste (in spite of the unintentional oniony undertones) and texture. The batter is creamy and smooth and the end product is a moist spongy cake. The combination of chocolate and plain batter is like eating a chocolate marbled butter cake. Very rich, moist and satisfying.

As some of you already know, dainty and mini are not in my vocabulary. Even my pharmacist complained that my Roti Paung is too big. I should make them much smaller like my auntie's. Oh well, some of us are not meant for small things :) Ann's recipe yields 24 mini cakes and since I wanted regular sized cupcakes, I simply doubled her recipe. I got 16 cupcakes and baked them in regular muffin pans without liners. This recipe is a keeper and I will bake these cupcakes again soon.

Golden Chocolate Cupcakes
Adapted from Anncoo Journal's Mini Golden Chocolate Cakes
Makes 16 regular sized cupcakes

Ingredients :
- 160g butter
- 160g sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 4 tablespoons sour cream (or yogurt)
- 4 eggs
- 240g self-raising flour
- 30g cheese powder (I omitted in my second attempt)
- 120ml fresh milk
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder mixed with 3 tablespoons hot water to make cocoa paste

Method :
1. Grease 2 muffin tins and set aside.
2. Sift flour and ddd cheese powder (if using). Mix well and set aside.
1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add sour cream and mix well.
3. Add eggs one at a time and vanilla extract and mix well.
4. Add flour and milk alternately to the mixture and mix well.
5. Divide batter into two portions.
6. Mix one portion of the batter with the cocoa paste to yield chocolate batter.
7. Using a tablespoon, spoon one tablespoon of plain batter into each muffin cup and top with a tablespoon of chocolate batter. And you can alternate by spooning the chocolate batter first and then top with plain batter.
8. Bake at 160C between 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Note : The extra batter after filling up the 2 muffin tins were baked in cupcake liners after I was done with the first batch. I had a bit of fun swirling the two batters to get a marbled effect.