Serious Chocolate Cupcakes

For serious.

So, my sister and her husband came to visit us West Coasties a week and a bit ago, and while she was here she made these delicious chocolate stout cupcakes (well, the recipe calls them muffins, but we agreed they must be lying). I loved them, but a) I'm not particularly a fan of stout and b) would never actually have stout in my house... So when I decided to make them from the recipe she left me I realized I would need something to substitute for the stout. I was musing over using buttermilk or something like that when I remembered that I had a whole whack of smashed blackberries (seedless, thanks to my fantastic husband!) in my freezer! And I thought: how awesome would chocolate blackberry cupcakes be?!?

The answer, my friends, is way awesome.

They aren't super blackberry-y, I imagine if you cut down on the cocoa you could bring out the blackberry more, but I just love the richness and slight berry hint it brings to the INTENSE chocolate flavour.

Serious Chocolate Cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 350F.

In a saucepan over a low heat, melt:
1 c. smashed blackberries (although any smashed berries would work...)
1 c. butter
1 c. cocoa

While that is melting, in a large mixing bowl combine:

2 c. unbleached flour
2 c. white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Once the first mixture has melted and been whisked together, whisk in:

2 eggs
2/3 c. sour cream

Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until everything is combined and moist (here you want to treat it like a muffin recipe). Divvy it out into either buttered muffin tins or paper lined muffin tins and pop in the oven for 25 minutes!

Once they were cool, I iced them with a Ganache frosting:

In a double boiler heat:

1/2 c. cream
6 oz. dark chocolate

DO NOT MIX. Once you know that the chocolate has melted, remove from heat and mix. Let cool for about 2 minutes before icing. (I iced most of mine by dipping, it gives them a nice look)

Enjoy!