Cupcake conspiracy: Cherry-chocolate

INDIANAPOLIS - If you are hardcore chocolate lover, this week’s conspiracy is for you. It’s undeniably one of the richest chocolate cakes you can make that isn’t flourless, which is not really the consistency you look for in a cupcake.

You want light and fluffy along with dense and rich. It’s a delicate balance when making smaller pastries.

The reasoning behind the Black Forest Cupcakes this week is my granddad. He has been on my mind a lot. You can read my Father’s Day post about him at twinkvanwink.tumblr.com.

I’ve been processing the fact lately that I am: 1- really missing him and 2- he isn’t going to be around much longer and I live 10 hours away. It’s a little overwhelming at times since he was such an integral part of who I am today and helped mold my worldview.

So anyways – Granddaddy really, really loves chocolate. Especially chocolate-covered cherries. Every Christmas at least one grandkid – if not every single other person in the family – buys him a box of chocolate-covered cherries. Seriously, next to family and baseball, he makes bank on one of his favorite things in life every Christmas – chocolate.

I tried this cupcake recipe a little bit ago with a different icing and decided to fine-tune it a bit for this week’s Conspiracy in a kind of dedication to my granddad. It’s basically the idea of a chocolate-covered cherry disguised as a cupcake.

See my recipes on tumblr.

I changed the icing to homemade whipped cream and decided to make my own maraschino cherries.

Don’t worry! The recipe for the cherries is pretty easy, and it’s nice to get the satisfaction out of creating something like that on your own.

One of the reasons I truly love cooking is the fulfillment after creating something amazingly tasty or labor-intensive is a success.

Recipes are here.

After you get the three elements created – chocolate cupcakes, whipped cream and maraschino cherries, respectively – you’ll want to assemble them delicately, and keep them cool. The whipped cream will begin to sweat if left out in a warm room, so make sure these are chilled or served soon after putting them together.

Pro-tip: Cooling the cupcakes after decorating in the fridge will keep the cake moister, denser.

Cut off the top of each cupcake, and poke small hole in the center of the bottom part. You’ll want to insert one of the cherries (without the stem, of course) inside. Maybe two. Drizzle a little of the marischino juice over it. Make sure they are tucked in nice and good.

Put the whipped cream in a large icing tube and squeeze a dollop onto the cupcake. Replace the top you cut off, and then squirt another dollop, then top with another cherry, preferably with a pretty stem. Presentation is 99% of the product. Wah-lah, ready for nomming.

Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked 300 apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic entertainment content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

Follow Twinkle on Foodspotting, Tumblr and Twitter.