Karin's Week Forty-Nine Recipe: Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes

I had a craving for something sweet, but when I investigated my sweet-making ingredients, I found that I only had 1 egg. This drastically cuts down on the sweet-making options. Off I went on a quest for a recipe that was sweet and only used 1 egg. I looked through my cookbooks and found a cupcake recipe in my 2008 Taste of Home Annual Recipes. I got this cookbook as a bridal shower gift the year I got married, and had yet to try anything out of it. As a bonus, I had a lot of cream cheese in the refrigerator due to a special at the grocery store, and Chocolate Cream Cheese cupcakes sounded right up my alley.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Filling:
1-8oz. package cream cheese, softened
1.5 c sugar, divided
1 egg
1 tsp salt, divided
1 c (6oz) semisweet chocolate chips

Cakes:
1.5 c flour
1/4 c baking cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 c water
1/3 c vegetable oil (I used canola)
1 T white vinegar

Frosting:
3.75 c powdered sugar
3 T baking cocoa
0.5 c butter, melted
6 T milk
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used Penzey's Double Strength, full amount)

In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and 1/2 c sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and 1/2 tsp salt until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Set aside. In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and remaining sugar and salt. In yet another bowl, whisk water, oil and vinegar; stir into dry ingredients until just moistened.

Fill paper-lined muffin cups half full with batter. Drop filling by heaping tablespoonfuls into the center of each. Bake at 350deg for 24-26min or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10min before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

For frosting, combine frosting ingredients in large bowl and beat until well-blended. Frost cupcakes.

These cupcakes were VERY well-received by Nate's work mates. He even got messages on the portable computer saying how good they were. He's been told that he can bring these in anytime he wants to, and already has requests. I thought they were pretty tasty, even the next day, although the frosting is unbelievably sweet. And, the recipe said it made 20 cupcakes. I got 18 cupcakes plus 1 "filling" cake, with quite a bit of frosting leftover (enough to frost an 8x8 cake). I think I will be trying out more recipes from this cookbook based on the response I got from this one.