Chocolate Buckwheat Costa Rican Coffee Cupcakes

(try saying that three times fast!)

                                

It is no secret that I am completely obsessed with coffee and chocolate(who is not?), hence the thought came to me to use a recipe in which I could harmoniously blend these glorious substances. When I was researching coffee I realized how easy it is to get lost in the literature, who knew there were so many techniques! Siphon, pour over, nel drip, moka pot, French press, and the list goes on and on not to mention which origin of coffee I would like to use: Ethiopian? Columbian? Hawaiian? For a girl who can spend an hour in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, all these choices for this recipe resulted in much more than I had bargained for, in short: a trip to San Francisco to visit the avant garde coffee makers, a $30 book on coffee, numerous coffee tastings of different origins, experimentation of different preparation techniques….all for the perfect cupcake, priceless!

Ok so what did I decide on you ask? For the origin I decided to do Costa Rica due to the fact that this is a point of origin for both cacao and coffee and I thought it would add a certain….je ne sais quoi to have a theme for the cupcake. (Or maybe it’s a bit of my type A personality peeping through)  I found the Ethiopian coffee to be too fruity (the coffee bean is dried in the cherry, resulting in a powerful berry flavor), and the Hawaiian coffee was a tad too mellow for what I wanted in the cupcake. The Costa Rican coffee was full bodied, rich, dark, decadent, aromatic…just what I wanted!  A trip to Whole Foods allowed me to find the perfect chocolate to pair with the coffee, a 71% cacao blend sourced directly from a single origin in Costa Rica and then processed in Belgium. Not to mention the chocolate bar is wrapped in a lovely little picture of a waterfall…who can resist? 

Ingredients (makes ≈ 24 cupcakes)

-3/4 cup strong brewed coffee (Costa Rican)

-4 eggs at room temperature

-1 cup raw sugar

-2 sticks of butter

-2 cups buckwheat flour

-3/4 cup brown rice flour

-1 ½ tsp baking powder

-1/8 tsp salt

-1 tsp coffee grounds (freshly ground)

-50 g dark chocolate (Costa Rican)

Directions

Let us begin with the coffee preparation since this is the key player in the recipe and it needs to be properly done for these cupcakes to be fabulous. I used a moka pot or the “Italian” method.  For those of you who are thinking, what the hell is a moka pot? No fear:

Ta da. So this dandy little contraption unscrews and you fill the bottom part with water up to the marked line, place the funnel in and then pack it with your ground coffee. Screw on the top and then place it on the stove and let it sit on the burner for 3-5 minutes. Depending on how course or fine you ground your coffee the time will vary, just wait until the coffee boils through it will usually start to make a screaming noise when it is almost done.  This is just one method option, if this seems too overly complicated for you feel free to just use a normal drip coffee maker, but make sure you buy the coffee beans whole and grind them right before making the cupcakes for freshness. Brew your coffee with your chosen method and let cool down.

Melt the butter and chocolate and let cool (don’t want to cook the eggs when you mix them in)

Mix the dry ingredients and slowly incorporate the cooled butter and chocolate. Mix in eggs one at a time but don’t over beat.  Add the coffee, stir well until the batter has smooth consistency.  Disperse the batter evenly amongst the cupcake tins. Place in oven for 13 minutes at 350 F, then wait for the magic to happen.

Espresso butter cream frosting
-2 sticks butter
-2 1/2 cup powdered sugar
-1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-1 1/2 tsp espresso powder

Dissolve the espresso into the vanilla and set aside
Use an electric mixer to mix powdered sugar and butter until smooth
Add the vanilla with the dissolved espresso

*wait until the cupcakes have cooled to frost them, use coffee beans as an optional garnish

Bon App!