Brewed Chocolate - my review Part 1

One of my must read cupcakes blogs is Cupcake Project. Stef has perhaps the most unique cupcakes I've seen such as BBQ Cupcakes w/ Corn Cream Cheese icing. She's kind of my cupcake hero. Very recently, she has started a new site where she interviews food business owners, creators, chefs, bakers, etc. This is where I discovered Brewed Chocolate. What a concept! There's a whole new way to ingest the most perfect food! And as luck would have it, I won a jar of my very own. Thanks again Stef!!

Ok, so in this Part 1 review, I made the brewed chocolate as directed - add 1 tsp chocolate to 4 oz. hot water. If you can imagine what chocolate tea would taste like, this is it. It's a very light flavor, not your typical chocolate richness, but in the middle of summer, it's perfect. It was very similar to tea that hadn't been steeped long enough, like it need something a bit more. So perhaps next time I will add an extra 1/2 tsp. of the syrup. Then I got to thinking, well I love cream in my tea so maybe this would be better and more flavorful with some cream or milk. So stayed tuned for Part 2 for that result. Once I've gotten a feel for the taste of it, it's on to putting it into my cupcakes!

The way to a man's heart (finally a new post!)

It's been over a month. I've been baking. Lord knows, I've been baking. Just so tired from the baking, parenting, working, beaching, and blogging that I've neglected my poor baking site. So to the 2 people who actualy read this, I apologize.



So a couple of weeks ago I made chocolate cupcakes with Reese's peanut butter cream cheese icing. It was very nostalgic to make something with Reese's because I contribute my husband's proposal to said brand. Well, it played a big part anyway. He was in school in Texas and I sent him a package for Halloween including a big bag of miniture Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. We were actually broken up at the time but "still friends" whatever that meant. He told me when he opened that package, he knew he was loved. One month later, he came home for Thanksgiving, told me he loved me, and the very next day, asked me to marry him. Talk about getting back together! So these cupcakes are dedicated to Chuck, the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I got the recipe for the cupcakes from Couture Cupcakes. She totes it as the "Best Chocolate Cupcake Recipe" I beg to differ. It was a little dry for my taste. The chocolate taste was divine but I'm a big fan of the moist cake. The first step is to melt unsweetened chocolate and cocoa powder in a bowl with some boiling water. This makes the most tempting bowl of chocolate which I kept forgetting was unsweetened so everytime I went to lick some off my fingers, I had to run for my Diet Coke.

For the icing, I just melted one cup of Reese's Peanut Butter Chips and added it to a basic cream cheese recipe which is as follows:
8oz. cream cheese (room temp)
4oz. unsalted butter (room temp)
Beat these two together until smooth. Then add powdered sugar, one cup at a time until you reach the desired sweetness, beating after each cup. Then I mixed in the peanut butter chips and got a beautiful, creamy peanut butter icing. I topped it all off with some mini chocolate chips just for fun! The leftovers went to work with Chuck and I heard they did not last very long.