Say Cheese! Pt. 1

The fatigue that I felt from the brainstorming for my dad's & bro's birthday have not even subsided and I was already racking my brains on what to bake for my colleague's birthday. I didn't want to create another whole cake as it would be difficult to handle in public, so I decided it would be cupcakes (plus it's kinda the "in" thing now).

The question is what cupcakes? I have never done cupcakes before (but then again I have never baked any cakes before February this year). I designed and tried a few flavours but most failed (oops!). However, below I'm sharing with you one of the recipes I tried but wasn't to my liking. It is again adapted from JoyofBaking and for those who love moist & dense cakes, you'll love this one.

Upper: Black Bottom Cupcakes, 
Lower: Oreo Surprise (R&D Stage)

Black Bottom Cupcakes
Ingredient: Cream Cheese Filling

Black Bottom Cupcake 
(didn't take a good photo because I didn't like it :P)

227g cream cheese
65g fine sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Ingredient: Chocolate Cupcakes
195g plain flour
200g fine sugar
30 grams regular unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (240 ml) water
1/3 cup (80 ml) canola oil
1 tbsp white distilled vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence


Method
1. Preheat oven to 160°C and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

2. In your electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla essence and beat until creamy and smooth. Keep it cool in the refrigerator while you make the Chocolate Cupcake batter.

3. In a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl mix the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla essence.

4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients until nice and smooth.

5. Evenly divide the batter among the 12 muffin cups. Then using a piping bag, pipe the cream cheese filling into the center of each cupcake.

6. Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, or until the cream cheese filling has set and the cupcakes feel springy to the touch (a toothpick inserted into the chocolate part of the cupcake will come out clean). Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. The cupcakes can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for about 3 - 4 days.

For those who wants to know what happened to the birthday cake:
Eventually I succeded in creating two flavours which we named it; Oreo Surprise & Avalanche. Currently we're selling it at $20 per box (minimum order of 6pc/box). You can check them out in the "Take-Away" section for more details. 

*This post was supposedly publish last year June. I'm not sure why I didn't publish it. Oh right! Because the photos wasn't good..Oh well...