Individual Chocolate Teacakes Topped with Whipped Cream

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Rich Double Chocolate Teacakes are perfectly complemented by a topping of lightly sweetened whipped cream. The perfect treat for a little girl’s birthday party! Affiliate links are used in this post to link to items being discussed. 

Am I the only mom who gets super tired of cupcakes? I am not a huge fan of frosting–give me a richer cake garnished with whipped cream any day. So this year for Sammy’s birthday party, I convinced her to let me make these chocolate teacakes, which I then topped with slightly sweetened whipped cream. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures, but for the girls I piped the whipped cream out through a plastic bag fitted with a round tip, so the cupcakes would look fancier, more like traditional cupcakes.

I did not bother with ours later that day. I just cannot be bothered with beautifying something I am popping into my mouth 2 minutes later.

The chocolate teacakes were a huge hit. There were one or two little girls who did not finish theirs, but there was more than one child who begged for seconds (nope, wasn’t doing that to their parents!), and, my favorite, there was a little girl who claimed to hate whipped cream. I convinced her to try mine, made with Snowville Creamery Whipping Cream, a regionally (other side of southern Ohio) produced, NOT ultra-pasteurized, unbelievably delicious heavy cream. To my delight she loved it! (Yes I am determined to expand the palate of nearly every child I come into contact with.)

The teacakes are adapted from a chocolate teacake (loaf cake) in Zoe Nathan’s Huckleberry: Stories, Secrets, and Recipes From Our Kitchen, a gorgeous bakery cookbook released this fall. This is the first recipe I have made from the book, and I was very happy with how they came out. The only hiccough I had was that they did not specify what kind of cocoa powder to use, natural or Dutched. This is a complete pet peeve of mine–in general the 2 are not interchangeable. After hemming, hawing and generally griping about it to anyone who would listen, I finally settled on using Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa, which is a blend of Dutched and natural cocoa powders. I feel like I read somewhere that it is about 80% Dutched cocoa and 20% natural; if anyone makes these with anything other than the Hershey’s please do report back on how it goes and what you used.

5 from 1 vote

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Individual Double Chocolate Teacakes Topped with Whipped Cream

Adapted from Zoe Nathan

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Cakes

Author: TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

• 1 cup (126 g) AP flour
• 1 T (10 g) potato starch
• 6 T (30 g) Hershey's Special Dark cocoa, see notes above
• 1 t baking powder
• 3/4 t baking soda
• 1/2 t fine sea salt
• 1/2 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled (I used decaf because of the kids)
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 t vanilla
• 3/4 cup (130 g) chopped bittersweet (60-70% cacao) chocolate
• 10 T (140 g, 1 stick plus 2 more tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 1 cup + 2 T (225 g) sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
• lightly sweetened whipped cream for garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
2. Line the wells of 2 12-cup muffin pans with cupcake liners (I used silicone ones and removed before serving the cupcakes). Lightly spray the pans with nonstick spray, including the insides of the cups. Set aside.
3. Whisk together the flour, potato starch, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
4. Whisk together the coffee, buttermilk and vanilla. Set aside.
5. Melt the chopped chocolate in either a double boiler or in the microwave in 30 second increments on 50% power. When it is melted smooth, set it aside to cool slightly.
6. Beat the butter in a mixer until creamy. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed and add the sugar. Cream until fluffy, about 2 minutes on medium high speed. Beat the eggs in, one at a time, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
7. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture, alternating, in 3 and 2 additions respectively. Begin and end with the flour mixture.
8. Switch to a spatula by hand and fold the miniature chocolate chips into the batter, being sure to fully incorporate any flour streaks while you do so.
9. Divide the batter among the muffin wells. Place the pans in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes and then rotate from top to bottom and left to right. Bake another 8-13 minutes, until the cakes are risen and set, and a cake tester inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean. Be careful to not overbake--be aware of the cakes toward the end of the baking time.
10. Let the cupcakes cool for 5 minutes before quickly removing them and placing them on a cooling rack. Cool completely before removing the wrapper and topping with whipped cream and serve immediately (i.e., do not top with whipped cream until ready to serve).
11. If you want to look extra fancy, use a plastic bag with a piping tip to put the whipped cream on top of the cupcakes. I did this for Sammy and her friends, but did not bother later, with the ones I just served to us.