First things first:  I’m moving from cakes to cupcakes in my grandmother’s recipes.  So far, my staggering genius for interpreting her lists of ingredients into edible masterpieces has been right on target—not one recipe has had to be reworked.  This one…is probably OK, but I have a feeling that there was a part of the process which might need another try—which you’ll see shortly.

A caveat before we get started:  This recipe calls for chocolate chips but I used chocolate chunks because that’s what I had on hand—but you can’t tell in the picture of the finished product so I don’t care.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Cheese Filling

8 oz. Cream Cheese, softened   

1 Egg, beaten   

⅓ Cup Sugar      

⅛ tsp. Salt           

1 pkg. Chocolate Chips  

Dough

1 ½ Cups Flour  

1 Cup Sugar       

¼ Cup Cocoa      

1 tsp. Baking Soda

½ tsp. Salt

1 Cup Cold Water

⅓ Cup Vegetable Oil

1 Tbsp. Vinegar

1 tsp. Vanilla

Topping

Coarse Sugar

Chopped Nuts

For the cheese filling, blend together well the cream cheese, egg, sugar and salt. Be sure to add the sugar in a steady stream to aid in even distribution.  Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to dig up all of the cream cheese that didn’t get mixed.  Then, run the mixer again until smooth.

Stir in chocolate chips—this means on the lowest setting for the shortest time needed.  You don’t want the chips to break up and create little bits which will melt too easily and darken the filling. 

Set mixture aside in a cool place.  (This can also be done a day ahead of time and placed in the refrigerator.)

For the dough, sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt.  Mix in water, oil, vinegar and vanilla until well blended. 

Using either paper liners or a greased muffin pan, fill cups ⅓ full.  Drop one heaping tsp. of cheese mix into each cup.  Sprinkle with sugar and nuts. 

This is the part which may need further testing.  I have the distinct sense that—while these instructions did mention dropping the cream cheese onto the batter, it may be that the cream cheese needs to be spread over the batter in its own layer. I’m not entirely sure how I would do that because the batter isn’t dense enough to hold the cream cheese while I spread it around, and the cream cheese has chocolate chips in it which means I can’t use a pastry bag, so I’ll have to think about whether the “bottom” part of Chocolate Bottom Cupcakes really means what it says.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes.  Recipe freezes well.