Mocha Cupcakes with Seven-Minute Frosting and Coffee-Bean Garnish

Mocha Cupcakes with Seven-Minute Frosting and Coffee-Bean Garnish

Cupcakes:

2 1/4 cup flour, sifted

2 tbsp cocoa

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup sour cream

3/4 cup espresso

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Whisk together flour and cocoa. In another bowl, cream butter until smooth. Add brown sugar and eggs and beat until well-mixed. My recipe says "fluffy", but the batter was actually unnervingly grainy at this point. It's okay! Add vanilla and baking soda, beat until combined.

Add flour alternating with sour cream. I did not have enough sour cream, so I did halvies with plain yogurt and it worked great, no problem. Still got that nice moist texture. By now the batter also was starting to get smooth and not as weird-looking. Add the espresso (I just used super-strong coffee). The recipe also calls for 1 tbsp of espresso powder, which I didn't use because I didn't have any. I think the coffee flavor is still there, but if you like stuff really strongly flavored you may want to add the espresso powder. I will note the recipe says NOT INSANT COFFEE!!11!, idk the difference myself.

Fill lined baking cups about 3/4 full. The cupcakes do rise nicely, but the ones that overflowed still didn't stick to the pan; this was a nice batter. Bake 11 minutes, rotate, bake another 11 minutes. Let cool.

Frosting:

1 1/2 cups + 2 tbsp sugar

2/3 cup water

2 tbsp light corn syrup

6 egg whites

Combine 1 1/2 cups of sugar with water and corn syrup over medium heat (about 5 on a numbered stove). Use a candy thermometer to tell when the mixture reaches 230 degrees F ("soft ball"). Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites until they are soft peaks. Add 2 tbsp sugar to egg stuff.

When syrup reaches soft ball, take it off the heat immediately and slowly pour it down the side of the bowl of egg whites while beating on medium. When all the syrup is in, raise speed to medium-high and let it go for the proverbial seven minutes (stiff peaks, bowl is cool). I also added a tablespoon or so of the leftover coffee for flavour.

Dollop onto cupcakes; garnish with coffee beans.

Recipe and Frosting adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

A word about the frosting: This is how Martha shows it looking on the cupcakes. NO WAY. There is some secret ingredient she is using to get that consistency, and I have NO IDEA what it is. I've made seven-minute frosting many times, and it is always, always the way it looks in my pics, not the way it looks in the book. I would love to be able to do that architectural sculpting, but no way. I have no idea what she did.