Truly Different Cupcakes. Mrs. D. Pemberton, Salem's Favorite Recipes

Attempt #1 Fair
Attempt #2 Better, but still not perfect.

Recipe:
4 oz semi sweet chocolate
2 sticks oleo (for anyone NOT born during the Baby Boom, that's "margarine")
1 1/2 cups broken pecans
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup flour
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Melt chocolate, oleo and then add nuts. In a bowl combine sugar, eggs, flour and vanilla. Do not beat. Mix only by hand. Add chocolate mixture. Pour into cupcake pans. Bake 35 minutes at 325. Do not frost.

Seems pretty simple right? And for the most part it was. When I read this recipe what struck me first was that there was no leavening agent. I also thought it had an awful lot of sugar... but I proceeded to try it out. Mostly because I happened to have all the ingredients it called for.
I used butter instead of margarine, but only because I don't ever use margarine. I mixed everything by hand as the recipe very sternly told me I needed to to.

And since it seemed I had enough batter for 18-24 cupcakes (recipe didn't specify how many it would make) I thought I'd try a few different options.

To your right, you'll see a gem that I inherited when my grandmother died. I honestly don't ever remember her using for anything in my lifetime, but it was too unique and too pretty for me to let it go to Goodwill. I believe it's some sort of steel... it's too heavy to be aluminum and far to light and un-rusted to be cast iron. It makes perfect miniature pies, but I've never tried making cupcakes it it before.

I filled them pretty full, since the recipe didn't contain baking powder or soda I assumed there wouldn't be much rise to the batter (I did put the pan on a cookie sheet just to be safe though). Also, the recipe did not mention greasing the pan... But it did contain a LOT of butter. So to be safe, for Attempt #1 I greased 6 of the cupcakes and left 6 ungreased.

After about 20 minutes the apartment smelled so strongly of chocolate, that I went to check on them to make sure they hadn't already finished cooking. They weren't quite done yet, so I let them finish baking for the full 35 minutes.

For the most part they turned out "OK". The bottoms were very moist and sticky, but didn't hold together well. There was no real difference between the greased and ungreased versions. The tops were crunchy, but in a good way. They tasted like a very rich brownie. They are very delicious, just a wee bit messy.

For my second attempt, I baked the remaining batter in a regular cupcake pan (non-stick, ungreased) but had very similar issues with trying to get the cakes out of the pans. The straight edge pans were easier then the fluted pans only because I was able to run a knife around the cupcakes the second time.

If you're going to try this recipe I think I would recommend using cupcake papers, in fact you'd probably want to try the kind made from aluminum foil. And for people with nut allergies, the pecans aren't crucial to the end result. The could be omitted or substituted. The batter also keeps very well in the fridge overnight (Attempt #2 was done the next morning). And it would make and awesome base for a brownie sundae :)