The thing about yellow cake with chocolate frosting is that it is a really nostalgic, Americana type of dessert. I personally don’t eat yellow cake that frequently, but it has been requested a lot from me, and I enjoy the challenge of making it! The thing about yellow cake is that it contains a lot of butter and egg yolks, and that’s what makes it yellow. Adding more egg yolks to a cake batter not only gives it that yellow color, but also introduces more fat, density, and richness, resulting in a cake that will definitely not dry out, but may struggle to bake light and fluffy without the right ingredients mixed in with it. What I find that works well is instead of going outright ham on the egg yolks, using some Japanese corn powder(can also do freeze-dried corn powder too), which lowers the gluten levels in the batter, giving it that lightness it will need. Usually, cake flour is made by mixing all-purpose flour with cornstarch, but this recipe does a similar thing in mixing all-purpose flour with corn powder instead! I also use buttermilk and whipped egg white in my batter, which alleviates any heaviness in the crumb, and leaves you with a yellow cake that tastes like a cloud! But that’s not even going into the other components in this recipe.

For the filling, we have a souffled chocolate center, as my homage to the chocolate frosting that you will find in yellow cake. This is achieved by folding more whipped egg white(which honestly is the MVP for this recipe in terms of keeping it light and airy) through melted chocolate to form a souffle batter. That is piped directly into the yellow cake batter, and the two are baked together to create a fun contrast in textures. The filling is cakey and dense, making it a fudgy foil(say that eight times fast) to the fluffy yellow cake. For the frosting, I wanted to use cookie butter, specifically Biscoff. I did not want the cakes to be too sweet either, so I used no additional sugar in the frosting, literally just whipping Biscoff with butter, salt, and vanilla until a light frosting formed. I wanted the combination of eating the entire cupcake together to be reminiscent of childhood, i.e. birthday cakes and a chocolate chip cookie, all in one!

For the cupcakes:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp Japanese corn powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg white, whipped stiff

In a bowl, whisk the sugar, butter, and egg yolks until combined and the mixture reaches a spreadable consistency. Fold into that half of the buttermilk, and all of the vanilla first. Then in another bowl, sift the flour, corn powder, baking soda, and salt together. Add half of that into the butter-buttermilk bowl, and fold that in. Then fold in the rest of the buttermilk, then fold in the rest of the flour mixture, and then finally, fold in the whipped egg white. Distribute the batter between 6 cupcake liners.

For the chocolate filling:
1/4 cup melted chocolate
1 egg white, whipped stiff
a pinch of salt
2oz mini chocolate chips

In a bowl, mix the chocolate with egg white and salt first. Then fold into that the chocolate chips. Distribute that mixture between the six cupcake liners containing the raw batter. Bake the cupcakes at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Allow the cupcakes to fully cool before attempting to frost them.

For the cookie butter frosting:
4oz cookie butter
1 stick unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, whip the ingredients together until combined. Pipe the frosting on top of each cupcake.