the ballerina bakeshop: black swan cupcakes
Let’s talk Black Swan Cupcakes. These cupcakes are a light chocolate cupcake with a classic chocolate buttercream frosting.
I added black food colouring to the frosting to make it darker. It will turn your tongue a little blackish-blue. If you don’t like using gobs of food colouring, you can just leave ’em as is – they’ll still be really pretty. You could also sprinkle black sanding sugar overtop like I did. Of course, you might decide to make a dark chocolate cupcake, or maybe something with dark chocolate ganache on top. (You could also use this recipe.)
The ballerina toppers are really easy to make – maybe the easiest craft ever. I’ll teach you how to make your own.
. . .
Chocolate Cupcakes {Black Swan Cupcakes}
recipe: adapted from Mary Margaret McBride’s Encyclopedia of Cooking 1958, Volume 3
Yields about 24 cupcakes.
- 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup freshly brewed, hot coffee
- 2 cups cake flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line your cupcake pans with cupcake wrappers/liners.
Place the finely chopped chocolate in a heat-safe bowl, and then pour the hot coffee over top, stirring gently until the chocolate has melted completely and the mixture is smooth. You don’t want any lumps of chocolate remaining. (If your coffee hasn’t melted the chocolate completely, you could place the bowl in the microwave for a few seconds to help things along.) Set aside and allow to cool slightly.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar into the bowl of your stand mixer (you could also use a hand mixer). Add the butter and sour cream and then mix on low speed for two minutes. The mixture will be thick and doughy.
Add the eggs, vanilla and chocolate mixture, and beat on medium speed for two minutes.
Divide between the cupcake wells, filling each no more than 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes – a cake tester inserted into the centre of a cupcake should come out clean. Remove from cupcake pans and allow cool completely on wire racks before frosting.
. . .
Chocolate Buttercream Icing {Black Swan Frosting}
Yields enough to frost 24 cupcakes.
- 3 ounces dark chocolate, chopped (I use 70% cocoa, but you could also use semi-sweet, bittersweet or unsweetened chocolate)
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 cups icing (confectioner’s) sugar – you may need more or less to adjust for desired consistency
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract*
- 1 teaspoon almond extract*
- 4-6 tablespoons heavy cream – you may need more or less to adjust for desired consistency
* you could use just vanilla extract, just almond, or any combination of the two
Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, and using only medium power on your microwave, melt the chocolate about halfway to three-quarters of they way through, and then mix gently until all lumps have melted and the chocolate is smooth. You could also place your heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water to melt the chocolate. Set the chocolate aside and allow it to cool slightly.
In the large bowl of your stand mixer, beat the butter and salt until light and floofy. Add 2 cups of the icing sugar, and beat on low speed until well combined. Add the vanilla and almond extracts, and two tablespoons of the heavy cream and beat until well combined. Add the melted chocolate and beat until well combined.
Add another cup of icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of heavy cream, beating until well combined. Add the final cup of icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of heavy cream, beating until light and fluffy. Additional icing sugar and cream can be added to adjust the texture/consistency as needed.
Oh this is gonna be big…
You ain’t seen nuffin’ yet, kid.
You totally need to tell us all the ballet stories. I never quite understood ‘Coppelia’ and despite seeing ‘The Nutcracker’ every year I don’t get how her tiny shoe kills a massive rat king. I also dig your virtual bakeshop, it’s the nicest virtual bakeshop I know.
Well, guess what, Juls?! I have a whole series planned for you. That’s right. I’ve been baking and craftin’ all summer. Because you are the wind beneath my wings. And you will be a ballet genius by the time I’m done with y’all…
And the shoe/rat thing? Well, it’s kinda like that whole paper beats rock deal. Totally unbelievable…
I can’t wait for more stories!
I LOVE this idea!!
LOL ADDICTED TO BLACK FROSTING …. I’m so proud of you!
I love the black swan!!! Wonderful post…fab recipe.
you are gorgeous xxxx
Thanks, friend!
Sorry about the smears on the window.
This is exactly why I said, “… keep your hands off the windows.”
Virtual windows are incredibly difficult to clean.
Nice richness to these cupcakes. Now, finish the story.
Okay, but you might not like the ending… (sniff)
Are there some heart-breaking scenes coming? Will I cry my eyes out? Sniff. Please hurry with the end of the story. The cupcakes make me drool, or is that my age?
You might cry your eyes out. Or, just hate Siegfried…
These are just gorgeous!
Thank you!!
i was totally wondering how you got that icing so black. i refuse to make cakes with red or black frosting on them, can’t ever get them right. gorgeous cupcakes, and since i have no patience i think i’ll google how it ends…
Adding the black food colouring to chocolate frosting makes it easier – you don’t need as much paste. But I agree – red and black are the hardest!
I’m voting for Odette finding Seigfried (who seems to have an excess of blood lust about him) and Odine she goes all swan freak out on them and crushes them both then hooks up with a hot Swan King and trots off to have lots of swan babies. Because a swan can break your arm you know, I’ve seen it happen. Well not seen it but heard of it. Heard that it’s possible. From people who totally saw it happen.
Love the goth cupcake vibe, it rocks.
Well, Emma, your ending isn’t far off. I mean, there’s no Swan King, but there is some fightin’! Swan Lake is pretty epic. And a little… violent/death obsessed.
Movita, this is at your same level of Totally Awesome Awesomeness!! Thanks so much for translating this beautiful ballet down to our level of understanding. And the cupcakes are definitely drool-worthy. They remind me of the homemade chewy toffee licorice I made some months ago… while dieting. Yeah. Brilliant. I could have blamed my dog for their disappearance, but my black tongue & teeth sort of gave me away…
And you’re so close to starting baking school!!! I’m so pumped that you’re doing this – I’m gonna live my dream through you, kiddo. No pressure – but if I wasn’t almost 60 – man, I would SO be right next to you. I’d be like the grey haired medical student on Scrubs. Remember her? She kept falling asleep… hahaha.
Lynne, don’t be silly. You’ll basically be right next to me. Via the intwebs and my iPhone. There’s no way I’ll survive baking school without you!
OK, so I REALLY hate that I can’t edit posts here. I’m sort of OCD about grammar & all that crap. I meant to say that this is at your *usual* level of Totally Awesome Awesomeness. Sigh…
Lynne, please try to be more grammatically correct in the future. It is required for any subscription to this blog.
Wow!!!! I have never used black food coloring!!!! These are so gorgeous! We had some divine Black Forest cupcakes from a divine bakery nearby, and these remind me a bit of those from the outside, at least.
Those fairy tales… they can be rather dark, can’t they? Do you remember the story by Hans Christian Anderson about The Red Shoes? Yikes.
Right? I don’t know how kids sleep at night…
I actually studied Victorian fairy tales as part of my degree, there was one about a woman on her wedding day who looked into a fire and saw herself in her shroud, you know, dead. There was another about children being stolen and working for evil fairies under a hill until they were husks. Night night kiddies! Wait…why are you crying?
gosh:::::::::::drum roll:::::::::::::you did it again!!
lub you!!!
oops! sent my reply (above) on my hubby’s computer!!
it’s me—teri from oregon :o)
Thanks, Teri!! Lub yah right back!
These cupcakes are awesome. positively sinister 😀
Only fitting for von Rothbart!
I like how you intertwined the story into your recipe. These cupcakes look sweet! I found you through Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic. Nice to make your acquaintance.
Thanks, DB! Glad to meet yah!
I can’t wait for further installments on this story and the ones to follow. Educate us! We are your willing subjects. And the cupcakes: gorgeous!
Oh, I will be schoolin’ y’all! The Ballerina Bakeshop has lots of treats on the way…
i am in love with the Ballerina Bakeshop. and i have like, ZERO problem with commitment. i’m all in. you tell me all the ballet stories you want, using cake and quite possibly the most awesome craft ever (that i can TOTALLY MAKE BECAUSE YOU KNOW I OWN THOSE BALLERINAS!) and i’ll be yours forever.
i’m so excited right now. i even know the ending and i’m STILL. excited.
Sticks out black tongue whilst rubbing nose and finger prints off of the glass…Awesome cupcakes and part I to the ballet…
I love your bakeshop…the brick wall is awesome! 😉 And these cupcakes are awesome. They’re kind of evil looking though…can a cupcake be evil? I mean that in the most delicious way though.
Owning a bakery could be rewarding and exhausting …. if it doesn’t work out you could rock cliff notes for kids. I mean really. This even held my attention.
I just read Confessions of a Closet Master Baker aka My Life from Scratch- G Bullock Prado. You might check it out.
What the EFF is wrong with Prince Siegfried? For one thing, he goes running around in the woods with a crossbow like a drunk frat boy, and then he makes out with a chick he just met? This sounds like something Prince Harry would do, has already done, or is currently doing.
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Loved your Swan lake story!
R
Comments on this post are now closed as it was published in August 2012.