Chocolate raspberry mochi cupcakes

This week has been pretty rough - there's not one thing that I can really pinpoint that made it bad (wait no, that's not true  - THE LAB EQUIPMENT BROKE), but it really was just an accumulation of little things that built up as the days went on. But luckily for me, baking is the perfect stress relief.

There's something just so relaxing about mixing the batter and decorating the final product while my computer is playing the latest episode of whatever TV I'm trying to catch up on at the moment. After I finished baking this week's dessert, I felt so much better - I think I'll be okay until the weekend!

As a continuation of all the birthdays around this time, today's cupcake is for two of my friends who are both celebrating their birthdays this week. One of them loves the mochi cupcakes that I often make, so I decided to make something similar, using the same mochi cupcake base. Instead of red bean filling and green tea frosting though, I switched it up and tried a few new flavor combinations out.

I was inspired by a cupcake cooking demo I attended last weekend at the nearby farmer's market. Kara from Kara's Cupcakes was showing how to make her chocolate raspberry cupcakes. I picked up on a lot of interesting tips and techniques and even got to try the cupcakes after they were done.

For my mochi cupcakes, I decided to use the recipe I learned from the demo and fill it with raspberry cream and top it off with chocolate ganache frosting. I made the filling and the ganache last night so it could chill overnight to settle and thicken. Today, I whipped up a batch of the mochi cupcakes. Since the filling was added after the cupcakes came out of the oven, they baked up a little smaller and flatter than usual - but still as tasty!

Pre-frosting:

Post-frosting:

Mochi Cupcake (makes 24 regular sized cupcakes in addition to 12 mini cupcakes)
(Recipe from Yoo Eatz)

• 1 box (16 oz) Mochiko Rice Flour 
• 1 1/4 cup of white sugar 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 1/4 tsp salt 
• 3 eggs 
• 1 1/2 cup almond milk 
• 3/4 cup canola oil 
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease the tins with canola oil cooking spray. 
2. Whisk all the wet ingredients (egg, milk, oil, vanilla) together. 
3. Mix all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt) together in a separate bowl. 
4. Add the dry into the wet and stir until just combined. Don't use an electric mixer, just combine it by hand.
5. Fill ~3 tbsp in each of the regular sized-tins and ~2 tsp in each of the mini-sized-tins. 
6. Bake the cupcakes for 30-35 minutes or until the sides starts to turn from yellow to brown.
7. Let the cupcakes cool. Core out the middle of the cupcakes and then fill them with the raspberry cream (recipe below). Pipe chocolate ganache frosting (recipe below) on top. 

Raspberry Cream (makes enough to fill all of the cupcakes above)

(Recipe from Kara's Cupcakes)

• 1/2 pound of fresh raspberries
• 1/4 cup of almond milk
• 1/8 cup of heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup of white sugar
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp lemon juice

1. Puree raspberries in a blender until smooth. 
2. Whisk milk, cream, sugar, and cornstarch in a saucepan over low heat for one minute. 
3. Whisk in raspberry and lemon juice. 
4. Whisk on medium heat until it begins to bubble and thicken. 
5. Remove from heat and let cool. 
6. Transfer to squeeze bottles (for easy cupcake filling) and chill in fridge overnight. 

Chocolate Ganache (makes enough to frost all of the cupcakes above)

(Recipe from Kara's Cupcakes)

• 2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 2 cups of chocolate (I used a mix of semi-sweet, dark, and milk)
• 2 tsp corn syrup

1. Whisk heavy cream and corn syrup together on high heat until it begins to boil. 
2. Pour hot cream mixture over chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl. 
3. Stir the cream and chocolate slowly until it begins to come together and is smooth. 
4. Store in fridge overnight. 
5. Right before use, whip in stand mixer until light and fluffy.