Chocolate Covered Cherry Day

For everyone who didn't know, like me this morning, today-January 3rd is national Chocolate Covered Cherry Day!

So in celebration Ive decided to make Chocolate Covered Cherry Cupcakes. You know I think there's a conspiracy that has been started by the supermarkets to artificially increase prices of cherries in the off season, who ever came up with National Chocolate Covered Cherry day in the beginning of January should be fired. A bag of fresh cherries were $7.99 a pound! Since cherries are out of season right now, I had to dip the cherries myself into the chocolate. Well Travis did that part for me. He's so good, he pitted all the cherries himself, then dipped them in chocolate. They look delicious!

The cake itself is made of the chocolate cake recipe Ive been using for the past couple of cupcakes.

The frosting is something I have never made before. Italian meringue butter cream, with 7 oz of bittersweet chocolate added. You can add any favor really, or just leave it plain. I suggest adding some sort of flavoring, the butter cream has a ton of butter, 3 sticks to be exact, so it tastes very buttery. There were several steps into making the frosting, first you have to boil sugar and water together, dipping a pastry brush in cold water and washing the sides of the pan down every once and a while. Then you mix egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar in a bowl, mixing until a stiff glossy peak is formed. Now for the interesting part...after bringing the sugar water to a rapid boil I had to let the temperature get up to 248-250 degrees. "As the syrup cooks, look for visual clues to assess temperature. It starts out thin with many small bubbles over the surface. The water will begin to evaporate and the mixture will become thicker. The bubbles will get larger and sticky and pop more slowly. At this point the syrup looks thickened, but has not begun to color. If you drop a bit of the syrup into a glass of cold water it will form into a ball. This is the firm-ball stage, and the syrup is ready" This was the coolest part of making it. The syrup really did turn into a crystal ball shape in my water glass, very cool scientifically speaking. Once that is all done, which will take about 5 or 6 minutes, I poured the sugar mixture over the meringue mixture. I had to do this slowly because you don't want any of it to get on the whisk or the bowl, it could potentially ruin them. Once its all added together, add the butter-slowly. Then it's ready! (told you it was a long process!)

Once I poured the batter into the cupcake liners I took a chocolate covered cherry and placed one in the center of each cupcake, and then smoothed out the batter with an offset spatula to cover them back up. These needed to bake also a little longer then the usual twenty minutes. I stuck these in the oven for 22 minutes at 350 degrees. They need to cool about 5 minutes before transferring them over to cooling rack. (They came out perfect! I've been struggling with the amounts for each liner, these didn't create a "hat" as I like to call them at all. I say hat because when I fill the liner up to much, the batter will rise above the liner, making it look like the cupcake is wearing a hat. =)

These turned out SOOOO yummy, in the words of Mason: "Hey Mason, are they good?" "Um, hell ya there good! they're unreal!"

Travis: "mmm there amazing! The frosting on those things are ridiculous!"

These are available for sale for $2 each. (sorry they were really expensive and really time consuming to make-but well worth it!) It's for sure going on the future Cupcakes by Coley menu!

Photography: Travis. J Premo