I usually put my blog posts up when the video goes live in the mornings, but Paul and I have been fortunate enough to have spent the last four days in Toronto hanging out (and working) at Buffer Festival! Which means the Paul end of things (the video) was scheduled and ready to go before we even left, and the Jenn end of things (the blog post) was not. I apologize to those of you who wait to hear my insightful additions to our current video in the form of the blog. Thanks for that Mom. Actually, I don’t even think she reads it! She’s really great at sharing on Facebook though 🙂
The last couple days, and months, and pretty much year have been incredible ones for Paul and I. We are incredibly fortunate to have dream jobs as creators on YouTube. Neither of us had been to Toronto before, and I love it here! I love the shopping, I love the culture and I love that there is any kind of food you could imagine here! We had the most amazing Thai food right behind our hotel our first night here. I haven’t seen a cupcake though. It’s been a nice break from them. We attended the Buffer Festival Industry day on Thursday and set up a booth to serve our Pumpkin Spice Latte cupcakes. Make sure you check us out on Facebook and Instagram for pictures of all the fun things we did that day. On Friday we attended a couple of screenings; Rhett and Link, and Epic Meal Time. Rhett and Link seem like incredibly nice guys, and their screening was great to sit through. They showed the audience the evolution of their channel(s) and we even got to watch Monday’s upload ahead of time! It’s a great one! The EMT screening was a showing of a couple of episodes of their new TV series, Epic Meal Empire. It was great to see those guys in person as well, and I even met Harley on the street . . . and totally fan girled on him. I was supposed to be professional, but that didn’t happen! I’ve watched him for so long, that I was just honored to be able to talk to him. Last night we finished the night off with a creator party at the pop-up YouTube Space TO, and had a blast. Google always treats us incredibly well. At the party, we were in the company of amazingly talented people . . . to name drop unabashedly, my friends Harley, Rhett, Link, and Shay Carl. There were soooooo many others that I knew were amazing creators, but being so busy, I don’t have a lot of time to consume my own medium! This morning, with very little sleep, we headed off to YTSTO again, for a couple of workshops. One on Creator Development, which we have had before, but it’s always good to have a recap and check in, and then another presentation from Rhett and Link. They have created themselves quite the empire and they have so many exciting things in store- including a new morning show with women!
Anyway, that’s the long winded reason why my blog post is late. “Jenn,” you ask, “can’t you schedule your blog posts like Paul schedules the videos?” Yes, I can. But I can’t figure out our server’s time zone!
I’ve been wanting to do these devil cupcakes since last October. I wanted to do them last year, but we ran out of time. I figure waiting a year to see if I really like an idea is probably a good thing. If I still really liked it, then I would definitely make it. I don’t have any regrets when it comes to cake videos we’ve uploaded, but there are some ideas that looking back, I know I could have done them better. When I’m developing an idea/recipe, I want to make it as fabulous as possible. So when thinking about what would go well with a devil cupcake, devil’s food cake was the obvious choice!
The difficulty for this recipe came when attempting to dip the cupcakes. If you do not place them in the fridge, the buttercream is likely to plop off and fall directly into your red melted chocolate. Make sure it’s solidly set on the cupcake before dipping, or you’ll ruin your red chocolate like I did while practicing!
If you’re still with me and reading, thanks again Mom, I won’t take up anymore of your time . . . so here is the super simple video for how to make your own Devil Cupcakes.
Devil’s Food Cake Cupcakes
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake pan with liners.
- In a small bowl, whisk together cocoa powder and boiling water. Add sour cream, and continue to whisk. Set aside for later.
- In a separate small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk together and set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together.
- Add eggs and vanilla and continue to mix until smooth.
- Add half the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix.
- Add half the chocolate mixture to the batter and mix.
- Repeat until all flour and chocolate has been added into the batter mixture.
- Fill each cupcake well 3/4 full, and bake for 20 minutes.
- Allow to cool completely before decorating.
- Cherry pie filling
- 1 pound red chocolate melting wafers
- 1/4 cup vegetable shortening (melted)
- Black buttercream
- Black fondant
- Fill each cupcake with cherry pie filling by coring out the centre of the cupcake. Place “lid” of core back on top of the filling.
- Pipe a tall swirl on to the top of the cupcake using the black buttercream, and a large open round tip (such as Wilton 1A)
- Place cupcakes, with buttercream on top, into the fridge to solidify.
- Melt red chocolate in the microwave for 60 second intervals, using 50% power. Stir between each interval, and continue until chocolate is smooth.
- Melt vegetable shortening until a liquid (30s-60s) in the microwave.
- Pour half of the liquid shortening into the melted chocolate, and stir to combine.
- Remove cupcakes from the fridge and dip the buttercream cone portion into the melted chocolate. Allow excess chocolate to drip off and place cupcake to the side to harden.
- Roll small pea sized pieces of fondant into cone shapes and curve them slightly to resemble horns.
- Dip the end of the horn into the melted chocolate, and press gently to either side of the red cone on the cupcake.
- Serve cupcakes when ready, or store in a sealed container for 2-3 days.
what size scoop do you use when putting batter into cupcake liners? I want to do black zebra like stripes with white frosting would you recommend one or two stripes?
It’s around 4-6 tablespoons. I haven’t tried the zebra stripes in a cupcake, but I would think that more would be better.