My dad never liked his cupcakes to be frosted. This was enough to make my little, childhood head explode. How could he not like mounds of sweet, buttery topping? But my mom respected his preference. Whenever she would make cupcakes, she always left a few unfrosted for him. There they would sit– lonely, topless, dry– but sure enough, my dad would eat them. He might have even enjoyed them.

I wonder how he would have felt about these beauties.

The black bottom cupcake, or as I like to call them– the unfrosted, but pretty darn delicious cupcakes– graced my dessert plate recently.

For those who aren’t familiar, the black bottom cupcake is an experiment in successful dualities. There is the moist, rich, chocolate cake– that gives these cakes their name, but then there is the smooth, gently sweet, cream cheese layer that is dolloped on the top. (I won’t say neatly, because from the picture above, you can tell that I am not always the neatest of bakers.) It’s like eating a cheesecake an a chocolate cake together in one bite. The two batters combine in the oven into one creamy and rich dessert.

There are a few baking morsels in the cream cheese batter too. As with many of my baking endeavors, this recipe came out of necessity. I had some cream cheese that needed to be used– but not enough for a cheesecake. And as I was perusing my baking shelf, I noticed lots of morsels– mini chocolate chips, bittersweet chunks, peanut butter chips– again, not enough to use on their own, but they would be combined into an “everything” baked good perfectly.

The morsels melted into the cake. The cream cheese filling puffed, and then sunk into the deep chocolate cakes. These cupcakes were just the right amount of decadent. Who knows, all those years ago, my dad might have been on to something.

Black Bottom Cupcakes
adapted from Taste of Home

makes about 18 cupcakes

Cream Cheese Custard:

1 package (8 ounces) light or regular cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup (2 1/3 ounces) sugar
1 egg
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (6 ounces) assorted baking morsels

Cupcakes:

1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) flour
1/3 cup (1 ounces) unsweetened, baking cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard muffin pan with paper liners, or grease and flour each cup. Set aside.

Make the cream cheese custard. In a small bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg, and salt together until smooth. Set aside.

Make the cupcakes. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, water, oil, egg, vinegar, and salt together until smooth. In another bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together, until lump-free and well-blended. Gradually beat the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until blended.

Fold the morsels into the cream cheese custard. Fill the muffin cups 2/3 of the way full with the chocolate cake batter. Drop one heaping tablespoon of cream cheese mixture into the center of the cupcake batter.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove the cupcakes to a cooling rack to continue cooling.