My husband and I enjoy hosting dinners and parties and we’ll often create some kind of these to help tie things together. We wanted to host a sort of Octoberfest celebration with a few friends so I started the search for a German themed dessert. Apple strudel would have been the obvious choice, but I wanted to try something different and ran across a recipe for Black Forest Cupcakes so decided to try it.

Spoiler alert: these cupcakes are amazing and while I will definitely make them again, the actual chocolate cupcake part of this recipe is perfect. I found my favorite vanilla cupcake base a few months ago while making Tiramisu cupcakes and this will now be my go to chocolate cupcake recipe. My biggest problem with most chocolate cake or cupcakes recipes is how dry the cake gets and ultimately I’d rather use a box cake mix than make it from scratch for that reason. Not so anymore!

The cherry pie filling I bought wasn’t as red as what’s in the picture on the Kitchn’s website and I was worried about the taste since it felt a little flat. In order to spice things up a little we decided to add a little brandy in with the cherries and cooked for those a few minutes.

The icing is a breeze and is basically the same type of icing as the Tiramisu cupcakes mentioned earlier. I’m normally a classic chocolate buttercream frosting kind of girl, but these whipped cream icings are really growing on me. They’re simple to make and for rich cupcakes with a lot of different elements it really adds a lot. My husband shaved some dark chocolate for me to use on top of the cupcakes and then I topped it with a Bada Bing Cherry since cherries are now out of season. I chose the Bada Bing Cherries because they were darker than maraschino cherries and that felt more appropriate for this cupcake than a bright red.

This was absolustely a great recipe overall, but even if I just made the chocolate cupcakes by themselves it would be amazing . If you’re looking for a chocolate cupcake recipe to replace a box cake mix this is it!

Baking Ease	8
Time Spent	8
Taste	10
Visual	10

Recipe Used: Kitchn