Black Bottom Cupcakes

Kate's mom sent me the recipe for these black bottom cupcakes a couple of years ago.  Why?  Because Kate likes them and I wanted to make them.  Kate loves these cupcakes so much that she had them at her wedding.  (The cake was for her husband.)

Kate and her husband came for a visit, so I used her mom's recipe to make the cupcakes again. I really like how moist the chocolate cake is and the cream cheese filling with chocolate chips is a nice addition.  The recipe below makes 24 cupcakes.  I halved it to get 12.


Ingredients



Cake:
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 cups flour
2 Teaspoon vinegar
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoon soda
2 cups cold water
1 teaspoon salt


Cream Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
6 ounces chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla


Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Mix cocoa, flour, sugar, soda and salt in a bowl with a hand mixer. Add oil, vinegar, water and vanilla. Sir well.

Line a muffin tin and fill each cup about 2/3 full.

Make the cream cheese filling by beating together cream cheese, egg, vanilla and sugar. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Spoon about a tablespoon of the cream cheese filling into the chocolate cake batter.

Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven.

Allow cupcakes to cool and top with your favorite frosting.  I've used chocolate frosting before, but made a cream cheese frosting this time.  (4 ounces cream cheese, 1/2 pound powdered/icing sugar, 1 teaspoon almond extract.)