These old-fashioned vintage recipe cupcakes deserve a comeback! They’re easy to make, and don’t require frosting or any other adornment. The rich chocolate base is slightly fudgy and the tangy cream cheese filling is an ideal complement to the cake. Be sure to bring the cream cheese to room temperature before making it, otherwise it will be lumpy and no amount of mixing or whisking will fix it.
A handful of mini chocolate chips(optional, but why not?)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a nonstick muffin pan with cooking oil. You can also line it with cupcake liners if you wish.Make the cream cheese filling by placing the cream cheese, sugar and egg in a small bowl. Beat ingredients together with a balloon whisk until smooth. Don’t stress if there are tiny lumps in the batter but beat until you can get it as smooth as possible. The warmer the cream cheese, the easier it is to get the batter smooth. See my section above for warming up cream cheese quickly.
Once the cream cheese filling is blended and smooth, fold in the chocolate chips.
Make the cupcake batter by placing the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt to a large bowl. Use a balloon whisk and vigorously stir together the dry ingredients until they are uniform in color.
Place the coffee, brown sugar, vegetable oil, balsamic vinegar, and vanilla extract in a medium bowl and whisk together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Whisk ingredients together until a smooth batter forms.
Divide the chocolate batter into the cupcake muffin cups. It should come up to about 2/3rd full in the cups. Then spoon a generous tablespoon of cream cheese filling into the middle of each cup of chocolate batter. You want to gentle dip the spoon of cream cheese into the middle of the chocolate batter, so it settles in a bit. Don’t just spoon it on top of the batter. This will fill the muffin tins almost to the top.Sprinkle a few more mini chocolate chips on top if you want.
Bake the cupcakes for about 25 minutes, or until the cream cheese filling starts to look a bit golden brown and the tops of the cupcake is springy to the touch.Let cool in the muffin pan, then twist and lift up each of the cupcakes and move them to a wire rack to cool completely.