Black Bottomed Cupcake

This was a recipe given by Sylvia a while ago, but I didn't try it until when I met up with Evelyn and Sylvia recently in London and Evelyn gave her endorsement to it (she's a professional ;) So I had to try it! An unusual ingredient is vinegar in the batter (I used a 5% distilled vinegar) but I read that it's because vinegar reacts with baking soda to provide the carbon dioxide needed for rising the cake. So now, I know and you know :) The other thing I found unusual about this recipe is the use of chocolate chips in the cheese mix, which makes it outstanding. Just see this picture of the chocolate chip melting within the cake:

The recipe seems to come from a book called 'Classic cupcakes':

Ingredients (makes about 12, american size muffin cup)

225g flour

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda

3.5 tablespoons cocoa powder

275g castor sugar

250ml water

5 tablespoon oil (should cooking oil which is neutral in smell like sunflower or rapeseed)

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

200g cream cheese, soften

1 egg

150g dark chocolate chips

Steps

1.  Preheat the oven to 180°C. Shift together the flour, bicarbonate soda, cocoa powder and stir in 200g sugar.
2. Mix the oil, water, vinegar and vanilla together in a cup and pour into the flour mixture and mix well to form a smooth batter.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese, egg and sugar together till smooth and then stir in the dark chocolate.
   
   
   
   
4.  In a lined muffin pan, pour the chocolate flour mixture up to 2/3 of each paper cup.
   
   
   
5. Drop a dollop of cheese mixture with a spoon right in the middle of each chocolate batter filled cup.
   
   
   
6. Bake for 25 minutes until firm to touch, leave it to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing it to cool on a wire rack completely. You can store in the fridge and it can last for up to a week.