spicy mocha cuppycakes

These cupcakes were so good, they get their own mosaic. Spicy chocolate & coffee cupcake with creamy coffee buttercream. Original inspiration came from wanting to make a spicy coffee cupcake. I then found Martha's Mocha Spice Cake which helped a bit. I wasn't sure on adding the chocolate - but I'm glad I did. These were an absolute hit. While trying to decide between chocolate and coffee frosting - I also came across How to Eat a Cupcake's verison of Martha's cake in cupcake form. Mine ended up a bit different - but hers looks yum too! Eventually decided on a really creamy coffee buttercream, which D declared the greatest frosting of all time.

I've decided that I need to start writing down these random cupcake recipes I concoct. I can't claim I create them from scratch, because I usually start with an idea about a flavours and then switch & add ingredients from a basic cupcake recipe. There are some amazing cupcake creators out there! All that said, I've decided all my colleagues who get get regular cupcakes for nothing - need to WORK for their cupcake. So I've introduced the feedback rule! In order to guarantee baking from me, they need to provide specific feedback.

Some of the Spicy Mocha Cupcakes Feedback:

“Om nom nom! Delicious. A leeetle bit strong (coffee) for my tastes, but that doesn’t mean I’d say no if offered them again.”

“Heaven in a cupcake - why do I drink coffee?”

“Overall, best cup cake I’ve had all year! Also the first. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here is my break down of the experience. The icing is by far the dominant feature of this cup cake, it tastes great and is a excellent coffee substitute. My concerns are that it is not firm enough, and perhaps would benefit from a little more (I don’t know what you use to make it firmer). It currently is more like a processed coffee cream than an icing. I would be concerned that if I dropped it, the cream would go everywhere, where as this wouldn’t happen if it was firmer. In regards to the cake. It wasn’t until my second to last bite that I noticed the great flavour of the actual cake. The cream is quite overpowering in this sense. Perhaps a little less cream would bring out the flavour of the cake a little more. The whole experience has left me with a wonderful after taste. And an alertness matched only by a slap in the face.”

“Yum yum. Very nice and well presented - looked very professional. Little gingerbread person good size in relation to cupcake. Nice texture of cake itself. All together a wonderful eating pleasure.”

“Bloody Brilliant – my favourite so far.”

So it seems they were a success! Enthusiastic(!) commenter #3 did get a cupcake with a sizeable amount of frosting and no gingerbread man! It was quite interesting watching who went for the cupcakes topped with gingerbread men.

xxxM