Black-Bottom Cupcakes

This is one of those desserts I make extremely infrequently, yet I still consider it in my inner circle of favorite desserts. Until recently, I can’t remember the last time I made these cupcakes myself, but I do remember each instance in which I got to taste someone else’s rendition over the past few years. Most recently, my little brother made them for our big brothers’ 30th birthday party. I’ve been dreaming of them ever since. I meant to make them for a birthday at work, but I was dumb and mixed up the days. I ended up purchasing a dozen florescent frosted cupcakes from the grocery store at 6am instead. Not cool.

But then hubby and I decided to entertain recently, and it was the perfect opportunity to finally make them.

The best part of these cupcakes, by far, is the cream cheese filling. I sure love cream cheese. Just start off with some cream cheese, an egg, some sugar, and just a hint of salt.

And beat it until it’s creamy.

The recipe calls for 6 ounces of chocolate chips. I just squeeze a 12-ounce bag in half and play it by ear.

And stir them in the cream cheese mixture.

Now for the chocolate batter!

See that? It’s about 3/4 cup of flour. I was so angry at myself for having run out. I thought there was another pound of flour in a bag at the back of my cabinet, but turns out I had 2 pounds of bread flour and 1 pound of whole wheat flour waiting to be opened, but no more all-purpose flour. This is the first time I’ve EVER run out of flour. Grr.

I’d already made 2 trips out that day – once to the grocery store, and once to the beer/ wine store. And it was raining. I really, really, really didn’t want to go out again for another 3/4 cup of flour, so I worked on the nerve to knock on my neighbor’s door (I can’t wait until I live somewhere that I can do that comfortably). No one answered, though. So, cautiously, I filled the rest of that measuring cup with whole wheat flour.

And for the last 1/2 cup of flour, I couldn’t decide which would be worse, whole wheat (grainy) or bread flour (doughy), so I used a mixture of the two.

Also, some more sugar (not pictured because I wasn’t thinking) and unsweetened cocoa powder.

Plus, some salt

And baking soda.

Blend these together, and then add some water, oil (I used vegetable oil), vanilla extract, and vinegar. And if you’re like me, have some dyslexia issues and get the amounts of vanilla and vinegar mixed up because the words look the same. Ah well. At least I did too much vanilla, not too much vinegar. Not a bad thing in the long run.

Spoon the batter into your muffin cups. I was really glad that I sprung for the fancy foil liners, since the batter was pretty runny. I’m used to creamier, thicker batters, so I wasn’t too sure about this. I remember thinking to myself that I’d be tempted to add more flour if I had any. Ah well. It was an experiment. For all I knew, it was supposed to be like this.

Finally, revisit that cream cheese filling and just plop it on top of the chocolate. I was trying to keep it from touching the foil, but I don’t know if there’s a legitimate reason for that.

And then bake! I’m not a big chocolate lover, but even I had to admit that they smelled pretty amazing.

Hubby had the foresight to stick these back in a warm oven for a few minutes before serving them. This left the the cupcakes warm, fudgey, and scrumptious.

Scrumptious, I tell you.

When I can I make these again?

Maple and Brown Sugar Glazed Ham

Hubby and I were lucky enough to receive some goodies from Omaha Steaks for Christmas, all wrapped up and frozen and waiting for a time for us to be ready for them. That time would have come earlier if I hadn’t forgotten about them, but it did eventually come.

One of the goodies was a big ol’ boneless chunk of ham. I’m sure that cut probably has a legitimate name, but I don’t know what it is. Rather than simply heating according to the directions on the package, I decided to attempt to make a glaze for it. A quick search online and I found a decent recipe. I quartered it, since it was intended for a full-size holiday feast. I knew that it would still be a lot, but dividing the quantities by 4 was about the extent of my willingness to do math.

First, I melted one and a half tablespoons of butter. In retrospect, I am an idiot and that should have been one and a half teaspoons. I could do the math (I wrote it down correctly), but I just couldn’t get beyond that, apparently. Okay, here’s more butter than I needed.

I added a quarter cup of maple syrup. God, I love maple syrup.

Then 1 1/2 teaspoons (yes, teaspoons this time) of honey and a tablespoon of brown sugar. I know it looks like I put two in there, but that’s because my measuring spoon was 1/2 tbsp. The 1 tbsp one was dirty. Boo yah.

Anyway, heat it up a bit and let the sugars melt together.

Okay, here’s the thawed ham, chilling out in a greased dish.

I poured the sauce over the ham and baked it, according to the directions on the package. I think the recipe for the glaze recommended basting, and that probably would have been great, but I just wasn’t willing to be that involved. I did put some aluminum foil over top, though, as per the recipe.

And this is what it looked like at the end:

Sliced up all nice and paired with some rice and a salad.

My salad included a sliced avocado just because I could and I wanted to indulge. I whipped up a batch of that maple-dijon salad dressing, and that pairing was divine. The sweetness of the ham glaze with the sweetness of the salad was perfect.

I tried to balance the sweetness with a bit of saltiness by putting soy sauce on some rice. The effect was bizarre and not nearly as pleasant as I would have expected. The soy sauce was a bad choice, though it wasn’t horrible.

And that was dinner!

The glaze was really nice. It was more watery than I expected or really wanted, but I suppose that could have had something to do with putting three times as much butter as I was supposed to. But it was sweet and yummy, and the ham was juicy.

I followed up with a 100-calorie Skinny Cow vanilla ice cream with caramel, from our freezer. I wasn’t the only one who thought it looked delicious.