Addie LaRue - Inspired Dark Chocolate Champagne Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Drizzle
“So much of life becomes routine, but food is like music, like art, replete with the promise of something new.”
I’ve been known to say life is short, eat the cake. For Addie, this couldn’t be less true, and yet she knows pleasure and joy are worth seeking. Indulgence is worth seeking.
If there’s one word for these cakes , it’s indulgent. Like Addie, I love luxury when I can find it. And for mere mortals, or people who haven’t struck bargains with Gods made of darkness, life is short. So we eat the cake.
That goes double for cake inspired by The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Since these cakes are all about indulgence, I want chocolate but I don’t want to have to work for it. So yes, I’m powering up a box mix. I feel no shame. And Devil’s Food Cake seemed like an obvious choice for the Darkness.
And these are my tips:
Add an extra egg.
Replace the water with 1/4 cup buttermilk and make up the rest of the volume with something more interesting. I usually do rich black coffee. But for this I wanted pure excess, so I went with a chocolate stout.
Go for the melted butter option rather than the vegetable oil in the recipe (see below).
Make your own icing. (In this case I’m dialling it all the way to eleven and going for a champagne cream cheese with salted caramel drizzle. And you best believe I’m not making my own salted caramel.)
Ok, everyone ready? Let’s go!
“Addie has discovered chocolate.
Harder to come by than salt, or Champagne, or silver, and yet the marchioness keeps an entire tin of the dark, sweet flakes beside her bed.”
Addie’s TOTALLY INDULGENT AND LUXURIOUS CHAMPAGNE ICING
For the literal icing on the cake (which is coming first for a reason which will become clear at the end) I borrowed from Gizzi Erskine’s black velvet cake, which is absolutely lush and worth making in its complete glory if you’re not a cheating, short-cutter like me.
Ingredients:
1x75cl bottle of champagne (you’re going to cook it down, so don’t buy something fancy. I recommend bog-standard fizz.)
500g cream cheese
200g icing sugar
250ml double cream
Method:
Pour the champagne into a saucepan, bring to the boil, then let simmer until it’s reduced down to 2tbsp.
Leave the champagne reduction to cool completely before adding to the cream cheese.
In a large bowl, lightly whip the cream cheese with the icing sugar and champagne reduction until smooth.
In a separate bowl, whip the double cream until it thickens but still retains its shape.
Fold the cream into the cream cheese mixture until it’s smooth and spreadable.
It can benefit from chilling for an hour or so while the cupcakes bake and cool (told you there was a reason I put it first).
P.S: funny story, working with cream cheese freaks me out, so I made this with the lights off and before preheating the oven, to keep the kitchen cool.
“Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”
THE DARKNESS CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES
Ingredients:
1x box Betty Crocker Devil’s Food Cake mix.
120ml vegetable oil (8tbsp) or 120g melted butter.
170ml chocolate stout (or Guinness, Guinness works too).
60ml (1/4 cup) buttermilk. (See below for my emergency buttermilk life hack).
4 medium eggs.
Method:
Preheat oven to 160°C (140°C fan).
(If you want to convert these babies to a cake it’s 180°C/160°C fan and increase the bake time to 23-28 minutes, until a rounded knife in the centre comes out clean).
Line TWO regular muffin tins with cupcake cases.
Beat the eggs, liquid ingredients, and cake mix together with a whisk (hand or electric, either is fine) for 2-3 mins. Until smooth and creamy.
Pour mixture into cupcake cases.
Bake both muffin tins at the same time, for 18-22 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes in the tins, then remove from the tins.
Let cool completely before icing (and drizzling with salted caramel sauce).
Eat to your little heart’s content.
You can decorate these however you like, of course, but I’ve gone with chocolate stars; for Addie’s constellation. And a little glitter, because what is life without it?
Plus plus also and, since I was going for an indulgent look I was using my fanciest cupcake cases. So I decided to try a trick I heard about to help stop the bases getting greasy: rice in the cupcake tin. (Don’t laugh, the wild rice is because I bought lovely mixed rice but I absolute can’t ever cook it right. I’ve tried everything I can think of, it’s a nightmare. So this was my revenge on it.)
Spoiler Alert, it totally worked! No greasy bottoms.
And that’s it lovely reading bakers! May you always get the good end of your Faustian bargains, and may all your cupcakes rise to meet you.
xxx