Black and White Cupcakes

This is another cupcake that made an appearance at my Mom's birthday back in June. It has chocolate cake on the outside, but the middle is filled with cheesecake. Instead of having frosting, a simple chocolate drizzle tops everything off, making it look very elegant. When you are making these, it might seem like you have too much cheesecake filling, but don't worry. All the filling sinks inside the cake when they bake, so be sure to use all the filling, even if it seems like a lot. Even though they didn't look as fancy as some of the others at the party, I had many people tell me that these were the best ones they tried.

My husband loves cheesecake, which made me think of one of my favorite memories from getting to know his family while we were dating. His parents and siblings absolutely love holidays, probably more than any other family I have ever met. I first realized this when one year I could not go home for Thanksgiving, so I decided to spend the time with them. That year, Thanksgiving dinner was going to be at the church, and the cousins were coming from out of town. I remember very little about the traditional meal which I'm sure had turkey and potatoes, but the image that forever will be burned in my memory was the dessert table. My husband in the oldest of 7 kids, and that year the four oldest decided to all make a different kind of pie. Well, by the time someone accidentally doubled the already doubled pumpkin pie filling and the other pies were made, we hauled 8 pies and over 50 cupcake sized cheesecakes to the church. I thought they were the only ones bringing dessert or something, but no, the cousins brought pies also! I think there was about 3/4 of a pie for every person there that afternoon.

I found out that my little brother absolutely loves cheesecake also. Apparently it is his all-time favorite dessert. While he spent a week with us this summer, he ordered cheesecake and cheesecake frozen yogurt, and he tried more than once to talk me into making one. He also loves puppies, but that's a different story. 

Black and White Cupcakes

Makes 12

1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temperature

1 tablespoon sour cream

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup cake flour (you can substitute all-purpose flour if you need to)

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cups whole milk

For the gooey chocolate glaze:

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

8 oz semisweet chocolate chips

2 tablespoons butter, cut into two pieces

1. Begin by preheating your oven to 350° and making sure that an oven rack is in the middle of your oven. Place paper cupcake liners of your choice in two cupcake tins and set aside.

2. Next make the cream cheese filling. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer on high until it is fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the sour cream and 1/2 cup of the sugar. Beat until well combined and set aside.

3. To make the cake batter, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together into a small bowl. In a medium bowl, combine the butter and the remain 3/4 cup sugar and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Next, add the egg and the vanilla and beat to combine. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Be careful not to over mix the batter.

4. Next, fill your cupcake liners about half full with the cake batter. Then spoon a dollop of the cream cheese filling on top of each cupcake. It will seem like a lot of filling, but it will sink during baking, so make sure to use it all! 

5. Bake the cupcakes about 15 minutes, or until they are set in the center. Allow them to cool for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

6. For the gooey chocolate glaze, combine the chocolate, the sweetened condensed milk, and the butter in a small sauce pan, and over medium-high heat, warm the mixture until it is bubbly and the chocolate has melted. Allow it to cool slightly, then spoon the glaze over the cupcakes. Enjoy!

Source: Adapted from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski. And again thanks to AmandaJean Photos for the great pictures!

Triple Chocolate Cupcakes

Hello all! I hope that you are in the mood for cupcakes, because I have a whole bunch of great cupcake things headed your way! All involving chocolate, all rich and decadent, and all fairly simple to make.


This week I am feeling incredibly blessed. Here are a few things that I am so thankful for this week: getting a big bag of clothes that are either my size or my little sister's, a wonderful mom's 50th birthday, 104 beautiful chocolate cupcakes, good friends both at home and at softball games with root beer floats after, my husband whom I love so much and who takes such good care of me, my little brother coming for a visit... I could go on and on! i love how God takes care of us, even in the little things in life. It has just been a good week!

My mom's birthday is today, and she turned 50! I used to think that my mom and I were really drastically different, which is true in some respects because I do tend to take more after my Dad's side of the family, but recently I have really come to realize that I am more like her than I thought. I think it is becoming more evident as I get older :) It has been really fun to be married and talk to her and learn from her and I look forward to doing so for many more years!

Last weekend, my sisters and I threw a big surprise birthday for her back home. To this point in my life, I have never witnessed such a shocked reaction to a birthday party! It was fantastic :) The party was a week before her actual birthday, and since my Dad has this "problem" of not being able to keep a secret or lie (especially to my mom), Mom wasn't suspecting a thing because she knew Dad wasn't organizing it- and he wasn't. I did tell him about all the plans on Thursday before the party which was on Saturday, (because of course, I can't keep a secret either!). He informed me shortly after arriving at the party that he did accidentally slip once that day, mentioning something about us being at the farm, but my little brother, who also knew nothing about the party, covered for him beautifully. Go figure.

For this party, my older sister Amanda and I decided that everything needed to be as black and white as possible, so all chocolate desserts was a must. Although I have made over 100 cupcakes at one time before, I have never had to make that many and travel great distances with them! My parents live about 6 hours from us here in Omaha, and since it is June, I was a little concerned about the heat. Everything went more smoothly than I could have imagined, and the only "disaster" I can contrive was when one cupcake "slipped" into my little sister, leaving the side of the frosting in the shape of her hand :) I'm pretty sure it was eventually eaten as well, however.  

Today I am giving you the recipe for the Triple Chocolate cupcakes, and they are truly triple. The cake is milk chocolate with a generous scoop of rich dark chocolate filling and all topped off with a white chocolate buttercream frosting. Over the next week I will be posting about two of the other cupcakes from the party as well. 

Triple Chocolate Cupcakes
Makes about 24

For the milk chocolate cupcakes:
6 oz. milk chocolate chips
2 sticks plus 6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1 1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
6 eggs, at room temperature

For dark chocolate filling:
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
pinch salt
8 oz. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

For the white chocolate frosting*:
3 large egg whites, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
pinch salt
2 sticks butter, cut into 16 pieces, at room temperature
4 oz. white chocolate chips

*Note: For the party, I actually doubled the frosting recipe that I have given you. With the double batch, we were able to frost the 24 cupcakes with generous mounds of frosting, and had enough leftover to frost 12 more cupcakes. This is why I did not double the recipe here. Feel free to double the frosting if you would like, but the single recipe should be adequate. 


1. Begin by preheating your oven to 350° and making sure that an oven rack is in the middle of your oven. Place paper cupcake liners of your choice in two cupcake tins and set aside.

2. To make the cupcakes, place the chocolate and the butter in a double broiler over simmering (not boiling) water in a saucepan on the stove. You can also use a glass bowl if you do not have a double broiler. Make sure that the bottom of the double broiler or the bowl does not touch the water. Stir frequently until the butter and chocolate are melted and smooth. Transfer the chocolate to a large mixing bowl and let it cool to room temperature.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. When the chocolate has cooled in the large bowl, stir in the sugar with a wooden spoon. Next, stir in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, until the batter is smooth after each addition. Gently fold in the flour mixture, being careful to not overmix.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pans until the papers are about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 22 to 24 minutes, rotating the cupcakes half way through the baking time. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. While the cupcakes are cooling, make the dark chocolate filling. In a small sauce pan, bring the cream, the corn syrup, and the salt to a simmer over medium-high heat. Remove the pan from the heat and add in the chocolate chips. Allow to mixture to set for several minutes, then stir with a wooden spoon until the chocolate chips are melted and the the filling is smooth. Let the filling cool slightly so that is it just warm when you are ready to fill the cupcakes.

6. When the cupcakes are cool, use a small knife to cut a well in the center of each cupcake. The piece you remove from the cupcake should be about 1-1/2 inches across and 1 inch deep. Fill each cupcake with about 1 tablespoon of the dark chocolate filling. Allow the filling to set before frosting the cupcakes.

7. To make the white chocolate frosting, begin by heating the white chocolate in a double broiler until is it just melted. Remove from the heat, and allow to cool.

8. Meanwhile, combine the egg whites and the sugar in a double broiler over simmering water. Whisk the mixture constantly until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture reads about 160° on a thermometer. If you do not have a thermometer, just heat the mixture until it is very warm to the touch. Transfer the eggs and sugar to a large clean bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high speed until the it has cooled to room temperature and can hold stiff peaks. Make sure that the mixture does not look dry, however.

9. Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low and add the salt and butter a few pieces at a time. Make sure each addition of butter is fully combined before adding more. Once the butter is all added, beat the frosting on high speed until it is smooth and creamy. If the frosting is runny, just continue to mix and it will take shape eventually, but you might have to beat it several minutes. Reduce the mixer to low and add in the cooled white chocolate until well combined. Frost the cooled and filled cupcakes immediately. Enjoy!

Source: Adapted from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski. And special thanks to AmandaJean Photos for the great pictures!

Sourdough Biscuits

My dad called the other day and left me a voice mail that went something like this: "Hey, I have a recipe that I want you to try. Call me back. Bye." No more, no less. Well, I was intrigued, to say the least, and before I had the chance to call him back, he called again to tell me about these biscuits. He said he just wasn't sure about them, so he wanted me to try them first. So, like a good daughter, I went out the next morning and bought the ingredients because I didn't have them on hand. Funny thing is, he actually bought the stuff too and ended up making then before I did! I guess I wasn't the guinea pig baker after all, if ya know what I mean :)

As far as biscuits go, they were not what I was expecting at all, but they were fabulous! The Greek yogurt gives them a sour flavor, like a sourdough bread, which since sourdough is one of my most favorite things, I will definitely be making these again. I made them to go with sausage gravy, but I probably won't use them for that again. They are not crumbly like normal biscuits, but rather chewy and more bread-like, so they weren't the best at soaking up the gravy. They would be excellent with soup or in place of a dinner role as a side for a savory meal. Either way, if you are in need of a bread to add to your menu, and you're short on time, this would be what I would recommend. 

Sourdough Biscuits
Makes about 10

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups plain Greek yogurt

1. Preheat your oven to 450°. In a medium bowl, combine the flour and the salt and whisk together. Add the yogurt in all at once and stir to form a dough.

2. Turn the ball of dough out onto a floured surface. Lightly sprinkle the dough with flour, then pat down to about a half of an inch thick. Fold the dough in half, then pat out again. Do this twice.

3. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough until it is 1/2 inch thick a final time. Using a floured cookie cutter, cut out the biscuits and place on lightly greased pan. Combine the dough scraps and roll out again to cut more biscuits. Do this until the dough is all gone.

4. Bake in the oven for 10 to 14 minutes until golden brown. Allow them to cool slightly before serving. Enjoy!