High-altitude fudge cake (p. 749) and High-altitude spice cake (p. 750)

When I get stressed, I bake. It's like an equation: Jessica+stress=baked goods. And I've been REALLY stressed lately, so I decided it was cupcake time. I really like cupcakes.

I thought I would make High-altitude fudge cake (p. 749) in cupcake form.

I started by separating my eggs:



I whipped the egg whites with a little cream of tartar and added sugar:



Does anyone else think whipped egg whites are beautiful?



(For some reason, my pictures are not particularly comprehensive, so you will have to use your imagination)

I melted baker's chocolate (making sure to lock the dog out of the kitchen with a baby-gate--I'm always nervous using unsweetened chocolate with Duchess wandering around). In a third bowl, I mixed butter, sugar, and vanilla, eventually incorporating the egg yolks and the melted chocolate. The flour mixture, along with milk, were added alternately to the butter mixture:



I folded in the egg white mixture until there were no streaks and poured it into the cupcake cups:




They looked pretty good:



Although they sort of collapsed:



These cupcakes were amazing. They were incredibly moist. They were definitely fudge cupcakes rather than chocolate cupcakes--dense and really chocolaty. It's a good thing the cupcakes were so good because they were quite a bit of trouble and made a TON of dishes.

Since almost every dish in my kitchen was dirty, I figured I might as well make a second variety of cupcake. I settled on High-altitude spice cake (p. 750). The recipe is a spin-off of the High altitude two-egg cake.

The main difference between the two recipes is that I added cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, cocoa powder, and a little red pepper to the dry mixture of the spice cake:





They were attractive cupcakes:


I made SO MANY! I don't know what I was thinking.



I love cupcakes, though. They are the perfect size for me.



This spice cake is a serious spice cake--if you don't normally like spice cakes, you would hate this version. It is extremely spicy. Between the red pepper and the ginger, there is a real kick. I used (store bought) cream cheese frosting and it was the perfect complement.

Spice cake always presents a problem for me. Josh doesn't like spice cakes, gingerbread, carrot cake and I really do. Without Josh helping to eat the cupcakes, I end up throwing half of them out because they stale so fast at high altitude. I need to find people who I can gift with my baking/cooking!