Published May 1, 2010. From Cook's Illustrated.
For a chocolate cupcake recipe with a moist crumb and just enough creamy frosting, we tweaked a chocolate cake recipe until it was perfectly portable, then worked in more chocolate without disrupting the cupcakes’ structure. We mixed cocoa with hot coffee to eke out more chocolate flavor, then replaced the recipe’s butter with more neutral-flavored vegetable oil. Substituting bread flour for all-purpose flour made our cupcake sturdy, but not tough, and it allowed us to add more chocolate—including a bit of ganache in the center—before the chocolate cupcakes baked.
Use a high quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate for this recipe, such as one of the test kitchen's favorite baking chocolates, Callebaut Intense Dark Chocolate L-60-40NV or Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar. Though we highly recommend the ganache filling, you can omit it for a more traditional cupcake. The cupcakes can be made up to 24 hours in advance and stored unfrosted in an airtight container.
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