Chocolate Cherry Brownie Pie: Like Your Mama Makes

Cupcake numero dos.  We took a week off from baking in observance of the miserable loss of the Steelers in the Super Bowl.  We were mourning and didn't feel much like baking and figured we didn't want the saltiness from our tears to interfere with the sweetness of our cupcakes.  Well we are over that loss and back in the kitchen. 

Tonight we made a chocolate cherry brownie pie cupcake.  We used the vegan (basic) chocolate cupcake recipe and added our own touches to make the cupcake taste a little more like cherries.  This was all done with adding a little bit of extra almond extract.  A good tip if you want to have your chocolate cupcakes taste a little like cherries.  We also added melted vegan butter in lieu oil and the cake itself turned out a little bit more like a brownie, which caused a pleasant surprise and added the brownie texture to our cupcake.  Neither one of us are upset.

Megan had another filling explosion and but nothing that we couldn't salvage.  I stood back because I could hear the pressure building and knew it was going to happen but couldn't stop it.  No major disasters other than that.

The cupcake filling was cherry pie filling - a bag of frozen cherries, 3 tsp. of sugar and the juice of one lemon.  It simmered for an hour to reduce and made a nice amount of filling for about 12 cupcakes.

The frosting was a cream cheese frosting with a hint of fresh cherry and drizzled with a chocolate ganache. 

The frosting was 1/2 cup of vegan butter, 1/2 cup of cream cheese, 4 cups of powdered sugar, a splash of almond extract - literally a splash because a little goes a long way - and about 2 tblsp. of cherry reduction taken from the pie filling as mentioned earlier.

The ganache was made by boiling 3/4 cup of coconut creamer and pouring this over a half pound of semi-sweet chocolate chips and stirring until melted.  Wow is this good and could be used for so many different things including eating like soup.

We ate these cupcakes with a fork.  They are delicious and m***t (I refuse to say that word and it rhymes with hoist) but they really are that word.  The brownie texture is a-ma-zing! A simple substitution of butter for oil (vegan butter) really made a lot of difference texturally.

They were a success! Yum!

Tip of the day: always listen to your mother, she's right.

Until next time sugar kisses and cupcakes dreams.