What about this?

Do you ever go into a coffee shop and take a slow deep breath to savor the aroma? I do. I love the smell of coffee, but oddly, I don’t drink it. Besides being a green tea type of person, the caffeine in coffee sends my heart into racing mode. Yes, I know green tea also contains caffeine, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to affect my body the same way.

Some of my favorite food memories are coffee-based. My Auntie Priscilla used to make a satiny, chewy coffee candy as part of her Christmas gift to my family. These little bites of coffee were each rolled in wax paper and then finished off with a twist at each end. It’s a prized family recipe now and it always reminds me of her.

Another wonderful coffee-based memory is the Coffee Crunch Cake once served at the now defunct Blum’s Bakery in San Francisco. It was a confection that consisted of layers of light sponge cake and fresh whipped cream, all covered with chunky bits of light-as-air coffee crunch topping. I can almost taste it now!

So after going out for coffee this afternoon with some friends, or in my case, a chai latte, I was in the mood for some coffee and baking. I’d had a recipe on my desk for a while and decided to try it. Chocolate Cupcakes with Coffee Cream Filling is a Paula Deen recipe, so it’s a given that it’s decadent and probably not low in calories! The cupcakes are made with a batter that contains fresh brewed coffee, injected with coffee cream, and topped off with coffee butter.

Overall the cupcakes were delicious. The cake part was moist and the cream filling was light, but flavorful. The butter cream was a little too sweet for me, but really how bad can a mixture of cream cheese, butter, sugar, and coffee be? I did not use the chocolate covered coffee beans for garnish because I didn’t have any, but I did sprinkle some organic raw cacao nibs on top. They’re not sweet and have a nice chocolate crunch. You can find these at Whole Foods.

One thing I would do differently the next time I make these is to use a pastry bag and pastry tip to squeeze the filling into the cupcakes. The screw lid of my Wilton squeeze bottle kept coming off and there is more wastage of cream since some of it inevitably gets stuck in the bottle. If you’d like to try the recipe just click on this link.

Again, what could be better than chocolate and coffee? Enjoy!!