Black Bottom Cupcakes

This may be my favorite cupcake. It combines my love of cupcakes, chocolate, and cheesecake. The all important 3 C’s! My recipe is adapted from allrecipes.com, with just a few minor changes. Mostly that I add plain yogurt to the recipe, and omit the vinegar. I don’t know why, but it just made sense to me when I did it. It tasted great, so I’m sticking to it. You can also make this into a cream cheese filled cupcake by layering: cake mixture, cream cheese mixture, cake mixture. This way allows for frosting, whereas with the method below, the middle of the cupcake sinks a bit making an uneven frosting surface. Try baking these in a mini cupcake pan for extra cute cupcakes.

Factoid: Cupcakes have also been referred to as “fairy cakes” and “patty cakes”.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

Servings: Makes 24

Prep & Cook Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 egg1/3 cup white sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup water

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 tablespoon plain yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with paper cups or lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese, egg, 1/3 cup sugar and 1/8 teaspoon salt until light and fluffy. Stir in the chocolate chips and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, 1 cup sugar, cocoa, baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Make a well in the center and add the water, oil, yogurt and vanilla. Stir together until well blended. Fill muffin tins 1/3 full with the batter and top with a dollop of the cream cheese mixture.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

This is a batch I made for my friend's bridal shower. The cream cheese mixture is in the middle, and I made this frosting recipe and then topped each one with an M&M.

Borani Esfanaaj

Now that we have the yogurt draining technique down, let’s put that yogurt to use. My favorite way is to mix the yogurt with cooked spinach, onion, and garlic, in a Persian dish called “Borani Esfenaaj”. Most Persian restaurants serve this as an appetizer with some pita or lavash bread, however, traditionally Persian cuisine is not split into different courses. Instead everything is served at the same time on the “Sofreh” or a cloth/spread on the ground.

Usually I have this dish on the side with a main dish, but I also recommend it as a spread or dip. For those of you looking to cut some calories throughout the day (like me!) this is a healthy alternative to the traditional spinach dip made with mayonnaise and/or sour cream.

Borani Esfanaaj (or Yogurt with Spinach)

Servings: 3-4

Prep & Cook time: 15 min. + at least an hour of cooling

Ingredients:

1 tsp of olive oil, or any oil you have on hand

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

4 cups fresh spinach or a package of frozen spinach, washed

¼ tsp salt

Pinch of pepper

1 ½ cups of the drained yogurt (see previous post)

Directions:

1- Drizzle the oil into a medium pan and sauté the onion and garlic on medium-low heat until tender and the onions are almost see-through.

2- Add the spinach and cook until leaves are wilted. Add salt and pepper

3- Set aside to cool for about 15 minutes.

4- In a small bowl mix together the drained yogurt and cooked spinach. Add any salt or pepper to taste.

5- Cool in the fridge for at least another 45 minutes. Then enjoy!

Yogurt

I love Yogurt. Hands down, my favorite food of all time and you will mostly likely be seeing it in many of the posts in this blog. Yogurt has been eaten for more than 5,000 years by people all over the world, and is so versatile that it can be used in hundreds of recipes. Now I’m not talking about those fruity, sugary yogurts. I’m talking about thick, creamy, sour, almost Greek-like plain yogurt.

With the economy the way it is, I can’t afford to buy those $5 little tubs of Greek yogurt, so instead I apply a technique that my mother used when she would make yogurt. Though I do not make my own yogurt, the technique can still be used on most tubs of plain yogurt. I buy those big tubs of Mountain High Yoghurt that you can find in your local Safeway, Lucky’s, or Costco (which has the best deal). I go through a lot a week, so I usually get the biggest size.

You may have heard of strained yogurt, in which the yogurt is strained through a cloth or paper to remove the whey, which is the watery substance that separates from the yogurt. This technique is pretty much the same thing, except I take it to a whole new easy level.

Next time you open a new tub of yogurt, instead of mixing it or removing a spoonful from the middle, take your spoonfuls only from one side of the tub, creating a well for the whey to gather. Each day open the tub of yogurt and gently tip out the whey that has gathered in the well. If you continue to use the tub of yogurt throughout the week, just be sure to only spoon out yogurt from one side. Remember to drain the whey everyday, sometimes even a couple of times a day. Eventually what remains is a delicious thick, sour, Greek-like consistency yogurt that can be used in many recipes or even used as a replacement for sour cream. My favorite is to eat the thick yogurt is to use it as a dip with some Fritos Scoops.

This is one container I've been working on. Looks gross with all that whey huh? And this is about 5 days into the draining process! Ya, there is a lot of whey in yogurt.

After the whey is poured out.

I'll keep the part in between my fingers in tact for a few more days, while I continue to drain the whey everyday. The final result will be so thick and creamy you'll be surprised you ever mixed the yogurt and whey.