Chocolate Bread Pudding Cupcakes

In my constant search for the perfect cupcake I was directed to this great blog CupCake Bake Shop not long ago and I have been ravaging her recipes for awhile now. I found this one amongst her greats, which the blogger herself says is a cupcake that she's enamored with. So I had to give them a try. 

I had a get-together to go to Wednesday night for the season finale of one of my favorites shows, Project Runway, so I figured I would take these along with me. It's definitely a more involved recipe then most, but I'm pretty sure it was worth the trouble, I'm still on the fence about their amazingness. 

I decided to go ahead and make the homemade toffee, as was recommended. Unfortunately it never quite became toffee, but seemed to remain in the in between stage, and somewhere closer to thin, small pieces of caramel, once I had attempted to chop it up. It tasted good though, so that's all that counts in the baking world. 

The recipe calls for a loaf of challah or brioche, which I could find neither of at my grocer. I think it's just because I went shopping so late at night and all the good bread was gone, but nontheless I was breadless and attempting

 to make a bread pudding cupcake. So the nice lady in the grocery store bakery directed me to a frozen loaf of challah that I could rise and bake myself. Well why not! I'm a baker, I'm making the toffee, why not the bread too! It baked up just fine, and soon found it self chopped up and coated in chocolate cream. 

The batter actually grossed me out a little bit once it was all put together, in look alone, not because of what was actually in it. First I had to boil some cream and milk with cocoa powder in it, and no matter how closely I watched it, both required boilings boiled right over and all over the stove. 

More chocolate gets added, and then some egg yolks and sugar. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking ahead when I made myself an 8 egg-white omelette - I have a cake to bake that requires 8 egg whites, while these took 8 yokes. If only I had thought to save those whites! Ugh! Anyway, all that gets poured over the bread to soak, and then lopped into the cupcake pan. 

I love simple icings, which this recipe required. Just whipped cream, that's it. And who doesn't love fresh, homemade whipped cream? I admit that these cupcakes are delicious, but like I said before, I'm undecided on whether or not they were worth all the effort. I will make them again, but hopefully I'll be able to buy a loaf of bread, and I'll definitely be buying toffee rather than making it. 

Here's the recipe. You'll have to scroll down because this blog doesn't allow for one recipe per page. 

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