Chocolate Cake with Oregon Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

July has certainly been the month of cupcakes with the numerous birthdays and celebrations that popped up. We round out the month with a return to finding the best chocolate cake and exploring a heavenly sounding frosting flavoring suggested to me by a friend. These cupcakes were a birthday present for my dear friend Melanie (there's your shout out!) who has a soft spot for cream cheese frosting so I figured there wouldn't be a better audience to test these out on!

All packaged and ready to be delivered to the birthday girl!

Analysis of the Cake
The last time I made chocolate cupcakes was way back in April, but after a recent visit to Miette bakery in San Francisco (my own personal Mecca of cupcakes and bakery decor) and a sampling of their chocolate cake, I'd been recently feeling inspired to attempt to recreate it. But, I was also torn because I got my yellow cake recipe from Miette's cookbook as well and a part of me wanted to explore some of the other cookbooks whose cake recipes have been relatively untouched by my crafting. But, a sign from the heaven's came down unto me as I was searching through Rose's Heavenly Cakes. There within it's pages was Miette's chocolate cake recipe. So, since it was in two separate cookbooks I decided I should just give it a go.
The Yays

• Holy cow does this recipe pack a chocolatey punch. Using 70% dark chocolate courtesy of Scharffen Berger and natural cocoa powder, the cupcake delivers on a dark, strong but not overpowering, and smooth chocolately taste. 
• That same strong chocolately taste is strong enough to match equally flavorful frostings without being lost in the mix. As was noted in my previous chocolate cake adventure, the last recipe I used was overpowered by the mocha frosting.
• The techniques used for mixing deliver a foamy soft batter (whipping the eggs, straining the batter through a sieve as a final mixing step to avoid over mixing) and a subsequently light/airy cupcake
• Those who know me well also know that a lot of times cake is a just a vehicle for me to eat frosting, my one true love. But these cupcakes are so damn good they don't really need frosting, I would literally just eat the cake and skip the frosting. That's fairly unheard of for me.

The Nays

• The cupcake did not hold its structure well by the last bites but I think it's my fault and not the recipes. I would like to try this recipe a second time but maybe cook it for less time to avoid the breakage that ensues.
• There is literally nothing else wrong with this recipe

Overall Impression: ohmuhlord, this is definitely the new winner for chocolate cake with some minor tweaking the second time around.

Analysis of the Frosting
Cream Cheese Frosting. 

• Although the last time I made this particular recipe I wasn't sure if it was the best cream cheese frosting, the more feedback I got from others (and a few more samplings myself), the more I decided it was addictingly delicious and the cream cheese frosting I will crown as perfection.

Strawberry Flavoring

Overall Impression: Ohmuhlord this is amazing and the combination of strawberry and cream cheese is simply to die for. De-lish.