Hidden Giant Cupcakes

Scientific Content of the Ingredients:

The ingredients that this recipe calls for are cream cheese, eggs, sugar, salt, chocolate chips, flour, cocoa, baking soda, water, vinegar, vegetable oil, and vanilla. For some of the ingredients, their purpose is flavor, like vanilla, and salt. Others, work behind the scenes in the chemistry aspects of it, to make the cupcake, well an actual cupcake.

First, when you start combining the ingredients to make the cupcake batter, you have to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately. Why is that important? Why not just combine all the wet and dry ingredients together right off the bat? Well, it is actually very important to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately. If you decide to not mix everything separately, it can destroy the texture of the cupcake, preventing a light and fluffy bake. The flour in the dry ingredients plays the biggest part in that process because it is there to strengthen the batter and then form gluten.

The biggest ingredient in these cupcakes is sugar because it is used in both the chocolate batter, and the cream cheese mixture, making it all sweet. However that isn’t the only thing that sugar does. Because of its properties, sugar also traps in moisture to prevent the cupcake from being dry. The vegetable oil is also used for keeping the cupcake moist instead of dry. With that moisture, the cupcakes will stay good for a longer period of time because obviously no one could can finish off 12 cupcakes in one whole day.

Of course with so much sugar, the cupcakes could potentially be too sweet, that is where the vinegar comes in. Because vinegar is so acidic, it plays a role in tempering the sweetness of the cupcake. That being said, the biggest role vinegar plays in this is the acid that plays a part in creating carbon dioxide to help the cupcakes rise. The base that vinegar reacts with, is the baking soda. As an adjustment to the recipe, white vinegar was swapped out with lemon juice and apple cider vinegar to see if either one would be just as good in the acid role. The details of the outcomes will be on another page.

Also in the chocolate cupcake batter is the egg. Eggs are used in baking for multiple reasons, however in this recipe it is used to strengthen the batter, and give it structure. There really is no use for it in the flavoring since NONE of the cupcakes have that taste of eggs.

The cream cheese and the chocolate chips are what you can see visibly in the center of the cupcake once it is done baking. The chocolate chips are able to stay in shape without melting too much because the chocolate chips are being isolated by the cream cheese, and the chocolate cupcake batter. Then the cocoa in the recipe contributes to the chocolate flavor, and then the color of the cupcake itself.

Utensils:

Really I’d say any cupcake pan can be used in this recipe. My family always uses an aluminum cupcake pan.

The other big thing that is used is a sifter. That is to combine the dry ingredients before adding them to the wet ingredients. That makes for a smoother combination, and a better texture in the cupcake.

Pictures and Recipe: I, Gracie P have taken all photos associated with this website, and this is a family recipe, so it does not belong to another source that I know of.

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