Everybody’s Mom’s Black Bottom Cupcakes

When I was growing up we didn’t call these black bottom cupcakes, we called them cream cheese cupcakes and when my mom made them they weren’t going to last in the Tupperware container for very long because they were everyone’s favorite. This was in the 80s in Wisconsin, USA. Once I moved away from home they became a thing of my childhood because they just weren’t there. It was as if my mother had the ability to magic these incredible things into existence and no one else knew how.

Imagine my surprise when twenty years later I walked into a bakery in Spitalfields, London, the UK and saw a neat little row of my mother’s cupcakes sitting there for sale. I had to keep myself from yelping in delight and, of course, bought two (one for now and one for later) because I couldn’t believe my luck in finding this echo from my youth. I wasn’t often in that neighborhood and I figured I had to fortify myself before facing a future without them again. Well. Turns out that wasn’t even the half of it when it comes to these cupcakes.

Not only, as I found out as the years went on, did this particular bakery have several locations but as I looked online to find a recipe to make them myself LO AND BEHOLD every other recipe I came across was advertising them as “MY mom’s black bottom cupcakes”. I knew this to be a falsehood because clearly they were from my mother’s incredible kitchen and hers only. Then I was intrigued and wanted to know the true origin which also seems to be mythical. No one really knows where the original recipe came from, only that (maybe?) it started in the eastern United States as early as the 50s. The thing I find fascinating about them, beside the fact they taste amazing, is the mystery of how so many people grew up thinking their mom was magic because the only place they existed was at home.

If you’re looking to bring some of that mystery into your kitchen, this is it. They are easy to put together and won’t stick around long but that is part of the enchantment.

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18 cupcakes

60 minutes total (40 to mix and assemble, 20 to bake)

Ingredients

Cream Cheese Filling

165g cream cheese room temperature (the not family size package)

65g granulated sugar

1 large egg

⅛ teaspoon salt

100 g Menier dark chocolate chips (the brand doesn’t really matter but I like Menier because they are small which works well)

For the cake mixture

90g all-purpose flour

100g granulated sugar

25g unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

125ml water

60ml vegetable oil

1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Turn the oven on to 160C fan to preheat and line a cupcake tin and a half with 18 paper liners. The assembly of the two components later can get a little bit messy so having yourself set up from the beginning will avoid you trying to separate those little suckers with sticky fingers.

Start with the cream cheese filling by putting the CREAM CHEESE and SUGAR into a medium bowl and whipping with a stand or hand mixer until it is incorporated and smooth.

Crack the EGG into the bowl with the SALT and mix again until it is all well incorporated. You don’t have to go overboard and can stop when it all looks uniformly mixed.

Pour in the CHOCOLATE CHIPS and stir. Maybe take one out for yourself before you mix them in. Think how good it will taste when they are part of the finished product. Set this to the side while you make the cupcake part.

Dry ingredients first: In a larger separate bowl mix together the FLOUR, SUGAR, COCOA, BAKING SODA and SALT. Stir it around until it is well mixed. No one wants a mouthful of salt in their cupcake.

Now for the liquid ingredients: pour the WATER, OIL, VINEGAR and VANILLA into the dry mix and stand/hand mix it until is is smooth and looks like something you’d like to eat by the spoonful. But don’t.

Sidebar: I know the vinegar seems weird but it is in all of the versions of the recipe I’ve seen. My guess is that the relative power of the baking soda and vinegar are needed to get the cakes to rise because of the weight of the cheesecake filling. You can’t taste it, I promise.

Now for assembly. As I mentioned earlier, it can get a little messy so I’ve found that if you use a 1/4 cup dry measuring cup to put the cake batter in you can then use a large serving size spoon to add the cheesecake filling to the top. However you do it, you want the cake batter on the bottom and top it up with the cheesecake. Leave a little room at the top. They rise like a phoenix in the oven.

Because of the cream cheese you are probably going to have to watch them toward the end of the baking time. I started looking at 18 minutes but they weren’t done until more like 21 minutes in my oven. You are looking more at the cream cheese than the cupcake for doneness and want to see a little bit of golden edge where they meet.

I know I say that you can eat your food whenever you’re ready and I’m not the boss of you but for this one I will say if you eat them too hot they will not be as good as when they’ve cooled. They continue to be good for as many days as you can keep them around. I’d also keep them in the fridge because of the cheesecake component. No need to let them warm up to room temp to enjoy, either!

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