You know the song in Alice In Wonderland, “A very merry un-Birthday to you!” Well, a very merry un-Iron Cupcake challenge to you! At least I’m going to try since I obviously did not make the deadline…yet again…this month. I still managed to get a cupcake designed and baked though, and that’s what the challenge is really all about right…baking cupcakes outside of the box!

I really wanted to branch out with this month’s Iron Cupcake flavor inspiration of soda pop. There are so many sodas to be had out there other than plain ‘ol cola…red apple, crushed melon, green tea, lavender…there’s even orange cola. Being the bohemian that I am, I wanted to experiment with one of the more uncommon flavors. My only problem was that I couldn’t find any of them available locally. Sorry dear reader, but I’m not going to make a special 45+ minute trip galavanting across Florida trying to find Kumquat soda. If I had had more foresight (which I should have by now) I would have known that I live in a proverbial no-man’s land whose only fizzy consolations come in plain Coke and Pepsi Co. flavors, and I could have simply ordered something unusual from somewhere exotic…like Scottsdale. *sigh* But I didn’t. So I was stuck with cherry.

The words, “She couldn’t decide,” should probably be engraved on my headstone when I go. I perused the gleaming shelves of the internet, eyes shinning with wonder of all the flavors to be had. Seriously though, it comes down to me being cheap. I reeeally didn’t want to pay the shipping for soda of all things. Soda should be on every corner, in every household, and available to all in every conceivable flavor…and then some. I actually came across a set of commemorative Thanksgiving Day sodas. I am not kidding. We’re talking Green Bean Casserole, Cranberry, Mashed Potatoes With Butter, and of course the ubiquitous Turkey & Gravy. This cornucopia of flavors didn’t really say, “Put me in a cupcake!”

Also, I got sidetracked by the egg cream. I guess I should say inspired, but the word “inspired” suggests visions of good things to come. Those visions turned out to be a mirage, and didn’t materialize. I actually made an old fashioned egg cream, which my Mom (a born and bread, native New Yorker herself, as am I!) thoroughly enjoyed, but I being from a younger generation didn’t have them same nostalgic feelings to warrant the calorie intake. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad. They’d probably be wiz-bang great if I had better syrup than Hershey’s but I didn’t feel like making chocolate syrup from scratch. I attempted a small cupcake recipe using a homemade egg cream and the results were….well, kind of like playdough with the slightest hint of chocolate. I certainly couldn’t come to you all with chocolate playdough, so I finally gave in and used cherry. What goes better with cherry than chocolate, which wasn’t the easiest decision for me since while I’m a chocolate FREAK, I could pass on chocolate cake most times. White or yellow cake with a good chocolate frosting though….you better have the brick house otherwise this wolf will blow your house down for that cake.

The other problem I encountered was how the heck could I come up with a recipe for a cupcake that included soda as an ingredient….logistically speaking. In most cases, cooking is a more forgiving science that can be nudged and cajoled into becoming tasty. Baking on the other hand is more exacting and if you forget a teaspoons worth of something you end up with some nice paperweight cupcakes. Who knows what the heck is in soda that might wreck havoc on your tasty treat.

Believe it or not there are very few true recipes on the web for cake that includes soda as a main ingredient (well, at least until this challenge). Most of the recipes I came across were all for using cake mixes *gasp* So I was back to the drawing board. The nice people at Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Forum gave me waaaaay too much credit, thinking that I actually knew how to augment the amount of baking powder to the amount of acid in the soda. I looked through, what I thought was, every cookbook I have in the house trying to find a blueprint for my carbonated cake device. Even my two favorite cake books, Tish Boyle’s Cake Book and Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible were barren of a decent blueprint. Keep in mind, this was all BEFORE I gave up on my quest for a far-out flavor of soda. Prior to resigning myself to cherry, I had been thinking of a white or yellow cake recipe. Once I accepted my fate of cherries and chocolate, wouldn’t ya know it, while trying to find a good buttercream recipe in the meantime, I discovered the resolution to my recipe quandary in Martha Stewart’s New Classics. Not only is there a recipe for chocolate cake, but also yellow cake that are perfect blueprints to use when experimenting with the bubbly.

The next step was frosting. I don’t know why I decided to do a buttercream but I did. I’ve had mixed results with buttercream. Every time (including this one) I’ve attempted it, it tastes like a lightly flavored sweet stick of butter. I like butter, but not that much. I have the book Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen from the library and thought surely there would be a good Professional recipe that would taste divine since it was Professional. I will give you the recipe, but be forewarned that while a classic buttercream recipe, if you have taste buds like mine, well…these aren’t the buttercream droids you’re looking for. That said, I do think I can make a buttercream in the future that should do nicely for people who like butter, but not that much. Please see my notes in the recipe for some augmentations to make it a bit (and I mean a bit, this ain’t light baking after all) less artery hardening.

So, cupcake recipe…check. Frosting recipe….check. The elements of my design just didn’t seem to cut it as worthy of an Iron Cupcake. What could I sweeten the pot with (so to speak) to transform my plain Jane chocolate cherry concoction into an effervescent exaltation of cake. Why chocolate covered cherries of course! That’s right, I got a jar of maraschino cherries, covered them in chocolate, and dropped them in the batter. Yum!

I have to say that this is the best damn chocolate cake I ever tasted. I’m not a chocolate cake person, but this one made me a believer. The chocolate covered cherries are great, but this cake would be great all on it’s own. These cupcakes are best eaten the same day (I know it may be tough for some of you, but I know you can soldier on), although they have kept very well for a couple of days in the fridge. If you must refrigerate, take them out of the fridge about 20 minutes before you eat them. I think they’re better at room temperature.

Cherry Midnight Cupcakes

I’d start out this recipe by making the cherries, if using them. Please don’t go out and buy a box of those stick-a-big-spoon-o’-sugar-in-my-mouth concoctions that pass for chocolate covered cherries in the stores. While I haven’t tried dropping those in a cupcake, I think they would probably overpower the flavor of the cupcake. Either that or they’ll burst while baking and you’ll end up with some kind of mutated cupcake that dribbles cherry cream. The cherries are the easiest part of the recipe, so I do recommend making them yourself.

Chocolate covered cherries

3/4 cup chocolate (I used a combination of bittersweet and milk, but I think it’s really up to your tastes)
24 maraschino cherries (approx.)
(You will want to double this recipe if you want a lot of cherries in your cupcakes. I wish I had actually.)

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Evenly coat the cherries.

Place coated cherries on wax paper. You’ll see in the picture that I put mine on a dish, but after hardening they were tough to get off the dish, and not the wax paper (which I didn’t take a photo of). If you want to put them on a plate it’s not a huge issue, just be prepared to have to pry them off. Put the cherries in the refrigerator (I put mine in the freezer since I didn’t think about the fact that they needed to harden until I had already started my cake batter) to harden.

Chocolate and Cherry Soda Cake

(Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Basic Chocolate Cake recipe in her book The New Classics. This made 21 cupcakes for me.)
1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups room temperature cherry soda
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Chocolate covered cherries (to taste)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line your cupcake pan with liners.

Sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, soda, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla. Mix on low speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Scoop the batter into your cupcake liners. Cut up the cherries and drop a few pieces into each batter filled liner. Use a toothpick or a knife to push the cherries down a bit below the batter. Try not to push them down too much. (I only used one cherry, cut in half, in each cupcake. Next time I’ll probably put in two, so you may want to double that chocolate covered cherry recipe.) I left maybe a quarter inch from the top and these babies domed like giant mushrooms, which made it a wee difficult to make any kind of pretty flower pattern with icing. Next time I’d probably fill them a bit less so I can have more doming area for icing.

Bake, rotating the pans halfway through,until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes then remove to cool completely.

Cherry Vanilla Buttercream

(I cobbled this recipe together from Martha’s vanilla buttercream recipe in The New Classics book, as well as a swiss buttercream recipe from the book Professional Baking)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean
4oz egg whites (I think this is probably around 3 large egg whites. Do go with just 3 if only using 2 sticks of butter. If you want to use the full 3 sticks, then I’d do 4 egg whites.)
3 sticks of butter, softened (If you’re like me and don’t like to feel like you just frosted your cupcake with butter, then cut this down to 2-2 1/2 sticks.)
4 tablespoons of shortening
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
1/2 cup maraschino cherry juice (or to taste)

You can do this first step in either a food processor or a blender. I did this in a blender. Drop the vanilla bean into the sugar after scraping the vanilla seeds into the sugar.  Process or blend this mixture until you can’t see any large chunks of bean left. Sift into a bowl, and discard any large pieces of vanilla. You’ll need to use a very fine mesh sieve for this. If you’d rather not do this step, then add more vanilla extract. Personally, I love seeing those little vanilla seeds throughout the frosting.

Place the egg whites and sugar in a stainless-steel bowl or in the top of a double boiler. Beat with a wire whip over hot water until the mixture is warm (about 120F).

Using either a hand mixer (what I have) or a standing mixer, whip at high speed until stiff peaks form and the meringue is completely cool.

Little by little, add the soft butter and continue to whip. Add each piece after the previous one has been incorporated. In the same way, whip in the shortening, if using, or the additional butter. When all the fat has been incorporated, whip in the vanilla and maraschino cherry juice. Continue to whip until the buttercream is smooth. (Forgot to take a pic of the finished frosting, sorry.)

There’s no big assembly instructions with these. Just frost and eat. Or not frost and eat. These were crazy good. I hope you give them a try!

I know I didn’t acknowledge Easter at all this month, so this is my little nod to the holiday. I actually scored this great cupcake stand at HomeGoods after Easter and had to use it for my pics.