What’s Black and White and Yummy All Over?

This is one of those recipes that I originally made a reallly long time ago, but was definitely worth the wait before it made its starring appearance here on the blog. I brought these to a birthday party at work and they were a big hit.

Black Bottom Cupcakes (adapted from here)

What You’ll Need

White Filling

• 1 (8 oz.) package fat free cream cheese
• 1 egg (or ¼ cup egg substitute)
• ⅓ cup sugar
• ⅛ tsp salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Black Filling

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup water
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp distilled white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

What To Do

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a muffin tin with Pam or butter, or, alternately, line with paper cups.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the ingredients for the white filling (cream cheese, egg, sugar, and salt.) Fold in the chocolate chips afterwards.

In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients for the black filling (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.)

Gradually add the wet ingredients (water, vinegar, oil, vanilla) to the dry mix. Mix well; the batter will be thin.

Fill the muffin cups ⅓ full with the chocolate batter. Top with one large spoonful of the white filling.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

You’ll know these are done when the white portion of the cupcakes starts to turn a slight golden brown.

Although it may be sacrilege to say this, I’m not a huge cheesecake fan. I find its richness to be overwhelming, and I can usually only get through a bite or two of the pure, unadulterated versions. I do, however, love the flavor when there’s something else to cut through the creaminess of cheesecake, and these were a perfect example. The strong but not overpowering chocolate portion is a great counterpart to the cheesecake portion, and the chocolate chips provide enough texture to keep these from getting too mushy of a texture.

On top of the great taste, they look pretty darned impressive when you’re eating them. Everyone you share them with will be sure to think you spent much longer slaving away in the kitchen than you actually did – don’t spill the beans that these are a cinch to cook!