MSC: Jumbo Cream-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

It feels like ages since we’ve posted for the Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes Club but we’re back and this month we baked jumbo cream-filled chocolate cupcakes!  The recipe was selected by Jess of Cookbook Habit, a fellow New England blogger and one of the wittiest ladies I know!  We don’t post recipes for this group so you won’t find it on Jess’s site, but I still encourage you to drop by and say hi 🙂  If you’d like to try the cupcakes, you can find the recipe on page 133 of Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes or here on Martha’s website.

As their name implies, these cupcakes are huge!  They’re baked in a jumbo muffin tin and although I don’t remember when or why I bought one, it is among the pans hanging out in my basement.  The recipe makes 12 jumbo cupcakes, but as usual, I scaled back to make just 1/3 of the recipe.  I only got 3 cupcakes, but that was plenty because seriously, each cupcake was giant!  In fact, I couldn’t get over the size and to demonstrate the scale I pulled a “regular” sized cupcake from my freezer and photographed it next to the ones from this recipe. 

The cupcakes get their flavor from cocoa powder and also incorporate sour cream, which makes them just the tiniest bit tangy.  This was probably one of the only times I’ve baked cupcakes without liners, but I didn’t have jumbo liners and fortunately, they released easily from the well-greased pan.  The filling for the cupcakes was just two ingredients – a combination of butter and marshmallow creme.  I knew it was going to be trouble though when the instructions wanted me to whisk the two of them together.  Marshmallow creme is sticky stuff and as I suspected, it was not easy to whisk.  I had to stop and scrape the fluff from the whisk more times than I’d like to admit.  To fill them, you cut a small piece from the center of the bottom of each cupcake using a melon baller.  I found it easiest to scoop out a small piece of the cupcake using the melon baller then switch to a paring knife to hollow out the center a bit more.  The bit of cupcake is reserved and plugs the hole after you fill it with the cream/butter combo.

After dinner last night Shane and I split one of the cupcakes for dessert.  I think we agreed that they were good, but not great.  The cake was tasty and tender but just a bit on the dry side.  For me, there was just too much cake in relation to the amount of cream filling.  Shane thought the sides of the cupcakes were too crisp, but I liked them that way.  The filling had a really buttery flavor and while we enjoyed it in the cupcakes, I just found it too difficult to work with.  If I were to make these cupcakes again, I’d make them in standard sized muffin tins and probably make a marshmallow icing from scratch.  If you really wanted them to be more like Hostess cupcakes you could add a chocolate glaze to the top too. 

Thanks to Jess for hosting this week!  Next month we’re making tres leches cupcakes and they’ve been on my to-do list for ages so I’m really looking forward to it!