Choclate Spice Cupcakes with Ginger

"Over the years some of the most popular recipes in Martha Stewart Living have featured the combination of chocolate, ginger and other spices, including cookies, brownies and spice cakes. These dapper upside-down cupcakes are the latest variation on the theme." - Martha


First of all, I have to say that I love, love, love the way my photograph turned out. I think it's better than the one in the book! These cupcakes were really very easy to make. They do have alot of ingredients, but everything is pretty standard as pantries go. Probably the "harder-to-come-by" items would be the unsulfured molasses (which I simply substituted the only molasses I had in the pantry for a previous cupcake....regular old molasses), maybe you'd have to get the dark brown sugar (alot of people only keep light brown in their pantry but for this recipe, dark brown is a must especially if you want the dark molasses flavor and again if you don't have unsulfured molasses...oh brother!), but of course the candied ginger may seem a bit out of reach for some folks too.



But I am here to say that believe it or not, you can get candied ginger in both the refrigerated area of the produce section in the grocery store and over in the spice aisle. McCormick Gourmet Collection and Spice Islands both carried it! So how about that? But you know, Martha actually has a "recipe" for candy-ing your own ginger...try that sometime when don't have anything else to do.



This recipe may not appeal to all tastes, but I liked them alot. And the bonus is that, at first glance, most people (my kiddos) think that they are simply chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and they try 'em! ha-ha-ha I sneaked a couple of spices in there and now they've eaten gourmet again! It's nice that this recipe only makes 12 cupcakes so cutting it in half only made 6. That was just enough to photograph, for everyone to get one, and for me to have a mid-night snack later. That's usually the most important factor....Enjoy!