TWD: Chocolate-Chocolate Cupakes

Today's recipe was chosen by Clara from I*heart*Food4Thought.
Thank you Clara!


You can find the recipe and her beautiful execution here:
The Cupcake Horror Picture Show




My adjustments:
Many people said these came out dry, so I took the suggestions of some members and made the following adjustments:

* Added about a tablespoon of vegetable oil with the melted chocolate
* Used half buttermilk and half plain yoghurt

I made a double batch and got about 3 dozen cupcakes (I underfilled some). They were tasty and moist, but the chocolate taste in the cupcakes was not "deep" or "intense" enough in my opinion.




I would've loved to fill these, but I plainly didn't have the time or energy do so.

You can check out what other great TWD members did this week here.

TWD: Lenox Almond Biscotti

Today's TWD recipe was chosen by Gretchen of Canela & Comino who picked the Lenox Almond Biscotti. It was a lovely recipe with almost endless possible variety. Thank you Gretchen for the great pick!



I made two variations:

1. Lemon Almond Biscotti:
   I used Dorie's recipe, rubbing in the zest of two lemons into the sugar before creaming. I substituted semolina for the cornmeal as it is not available here (I was told polenta is available but quite expensive). I also added one teaspoon vanilla essence in place of one teaspoon of almond essence (I was going to leave that out completely but eventually added only the half teaspoon) While I was shaping the logs my mom was telling me "You should add some flour. The dough needs extra flour" but I told her "they" said it would be wet so I left it as it was. It spread considerably in the oven. The taste was ok but not "wow". My mom thought it was too lemony :)





2. Cinnamon "Caramel" Biscotti

I had to ask everyone to please not finish these off before I took pics. I've always made this Cinnamon Hazelnut Biscotti (sans hazelnuts) from the AllRecipes website. It's so much a favorite recipe I actually make it in double batches. So I had to make cinnamon biscotti. I was trying to come up with a cinnamon combo when a coworker suggested "sugar" or "caramel" goes well with cinnamon. Sugar? It already has sugar. Caramel? At this point it seemed suitable to use brown sugar in place of the white. And that is exactly what I did, cup for cup. I also added 2 teaspoons cinnamon powder to the dry ingredients. For the cornmeal, I just substituted half a cup whole wheat flour. Plus I added about a quarter of a cup flour as my mother's suggestion. These did not spread as much in the oven and were much better accepted. I literally had to hide them to stop them from being eaten.

I will certainly try this recipe again with other combinations. Don't forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what everyone else made this week. I'm going there just now to check out the great combination everyone has come up with!

And many thanks go to my sister Tem, who helped with the food styling :)

Happy Baking!