Coffee? Tick. Chocolate? Tick. Sugar? Tick. Butter? Tick. Alcohol? Tick. WIN
I had a dream. A dream to combine my favourite things in the world: cupcakes and caffeine, using Red Bull (if you can get Red Bull icecream, surely there can be a cupcake flavour, surely!). On a whim, I also thought it would be fun to tip crushed pop-rocks into the frosting, a lá Heston Blumenthal’s … um … “exploding cake” dessert as featured on the Roman Feast episode. Then I tinted the batter green, the frosting red, and, well … it was utterly revolting 
Commiserating over a coffee, it struck me: why not make a Caffeinated Cappuccino Cupcake instead? Ta da! The recipe below is adapted by CakeMistress from a Women’s Weekly cookbook. It’s a coffee-flavoured cupcake with a vanilla ‘cheesecake’ topping, dusted with powdered chocolate and it’s much tastier than the Red Bull version 
YOU WILL NEED
Cupcake:
125 g Butter, room temperature
Two shots of fresh espresso, cooled (or 3 teaspoons Instant Coffee Powder, dissolved)
2 tablespoons Tia Maria (optional)
3/4 cup (165g) Caster Sugar
2 Eggs (room temperature)
1 1/2 cups (225g) Self-raising flour
1/3 cup (80ml) Milk (room temperature)
Cheesecake Topping:
250 g Cream cheese
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup (80g) Icing sugar mixture
1 Egg
To finish: drinking Chocolate Powder
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 200c. Line 24 holes of 2 x 12 holes muffin pans with paper-lined foil muffin cases.
- In a medium bowl cream the butter, add sugar, Tia Maria and Espresso, and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until combined after each addition. Fold in the milk and sifted flour in two batches.
- Fill each muffin pan no more than 1/3 full. Don’t go overboard, as they rise quite a bit in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes at 200c.
- Meanwhile, prepare cheesecake topping. Beat cream cheese and vanilla in a small bowl with electric mixer until fluffy; add remaining ingredients and beat until combined.
- After 10 minutes, remove cakes from oven and carefully spread each cake with Cheesecake Topping to the top of the muffin case. Return to oven and bake for another 15 minutes.
- Cool cakes in pans. Dust with sifted drinking chocolate powder to finish.
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{ 6 comments }
OK, so these certainly look delicious, and I would happily scarf two for afternoon tea right now, but come on… you know we want to see the abominations! You tease!
(did you use actual Red Bull in the fails? How about using that Red Bull syrup you can get in Asian countries/shops?)
LOL! I am thinking with the pop rocks, my kiddos would have been completely on board!
Your cupcakes sound delicious! Thanks for sharing
@Conor: oh dear, I know all about that syrup. Curiosity got the better of me during my intrepid caffeine explorer days, and I drank the bottle. Was a verrrry, um… productive… afternoon
Luckily the deli is right next to my lecture room, so I’ll have to try it again (spreading the contents across 12 cupcakes this time, eep). Great idea!
@Janelle: yeah, I was so excited about the pop-rocks too! But i’m not sure where to place them so they won’t go soggy before they hit your mouth
Love the frosting…..
I love the sound of the cappucino cupcakes (coffee plus chocolate, you had me at hello), but I really love the look of the green ones. They would not look out of place in the new Alice in Wonderland movie.
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