Chocolate Cherry Coke Cupcakes

When I saw these Cherry Coke Cupcakes over on Annie's Eats, I just thought they were adorable. I of course, starred them in my Google Reader only to buried by many other posts that I starred. I found them again a couple of months later and this time I even printed out the recipe. But again, the recipe got buried. I still didn't have a good reason to make them. Then I came across the recipe once again when trying to decide what kind of cupcakes to make for my sister's bridal shower and I since I was making lemon cupcakes, I decided something chocolate would be good for the other flavor.

The cupcakes are essentially a chocolate buttermilk cupcake made with coke. The filling is cherry pie filling (you can make a filling from scratch if you want but there are already a few steps to these so I took a shortcut - I also used light filling so it wouldn't be too sweet). The coke glaze really adds some coke flavor to the cupcakes so don't skip this step. According to my sister, it tastes like a "coke float", top the cupcakes with a pretty spiral of whipped cream icing and a maraschino cherry and these little cupcakes are adorable.

Chocolate Cherry Coke Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from Annie's Eats
Makes 24 cupcakes

Cake:
3 cups all purpose flour
6 T cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups Coke (don't use diet)
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 can cherry pie filling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pans with liners or spray with baking spray. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa in a bowl and set aside.

In a mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine sugar and butter and beat on medium-high until light and creamy. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating about 1 minute after each. In a large mixing cup or small bowl, combine buttermilk, Coke and vanilla extract. (Make sure you wait for the foam to go down when measuring the Coke and don't worry if your mixture looks curdled when you add the buttermilk.)

Beginning with the dry ingredient mix, add in 4 parts to the butter mixture, alternating with the Coke mixture. Beat each addition just until incorporated.

Use a cookie scoop or piping bag to transfer the batter to the muffin tins, filling each tin about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the tops spring back when touched lightly and a toothpick inserted in the center cupcake comes out clean. Cool about 5 minutes in the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, use a paring knife to cut out a cone shape in the middle of each cupcake. Add a spoonful of cherry mixture (2-3 cherries) to the well.

Glaze:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3-4 T Coke

Mix together with a whisk in a small bowl. The mixture should run slowly off a spoon so you can drizzle the cupcakes but it won't run all over the place.

Icing:
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
6 T powdered sugar
Maraschino Cherries for garnish

Beat cream in a chilled bowl with whisk attachment or hand mixer on low speed. Begin adding sugar, 1 spoonful at a time, increasing speed as the cream comes together. Whip the cream until it holds stiff peaks, if you dip a spoon in it, the whipped cream should stay on the spoon when you turn it upside down. Pipe the whipped cream onto cupcakes as desired and top with maraschino cherries for garnish.