Marble Cupcakes

Out of the many delicious and unique recipes from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes book, the only one that stood out to my mom was perhaps the most basic recipe to ever exist; Marble Cupcakes. I’ll be honest, I tried baking the zebra cake that was so popular a few years ago and it was an epic failure. It was bad enough that it looked so un-zebra like (Not even in the least. Well maybe an albino zebra) but it tasted worst. So I made sure the next time I try a “dual-flavoured” anything, I would perhaps choose a simpler recipe and this one seemed straightforward enough so I decided to try it. Plus, it’s in cupcake form.

I cannot screw up something so small, right?

 

Marble Cupcakes *recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes*
1¾ cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
⅓ cup milk, room temperature
⅓ cup heavy cream, room temperature
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
¼ cup boiling water
Powdered sugar, for dusting

 

-Preheat oven to 350°f/180°f. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Stir together cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine milk and cream.
-With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and granulated sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk mixture, and beating until combined.
-To make chocolate batter, measure out 1 cup batter, and transfer to another bowl. Combine cocoa and the boiling water in a bowl. Stir into reserved 1 cup batter.

 

 

-Fill prepared cups with alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate batter, filling each three-quarters full. Run the tip of a paring knife or wooden skewer through batter in a figure-eight motion to make swirls. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until tops are golden and a cake tester (i.e. toothpick) inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

 

 

Dust with powdered sugar before serving. Everyone, I present to you the life cycle of a cupcake.

 

 

 

Oh, and don’t skimp on the powdered sugar, these cupcakes needed it. They were a bit too blah for me. As something you’d have with your coffee or tea, it’s fine, but for a kickass dessert, I think they would be brilliant with some sort of icing. After all, what’s a cupcake without frosting? I also think they would be bomb with a light drizzle of dulce de leche. Mmmmm dulce de leche.