This weekend I wanted to see how to make a filling or frosting out of speculoos that was less intense than the spread itself. The only way to do this more or less was with cupcakes…challenge accepted. Chocolate seemed most appropriate, and I had some chocolate chips from a photo shoot at work to use up (pics to come). I discovered that your typical frosting additions do not particularly help the spec-situation, and ended up with acceptably tasting, yet strangely textured speculoos “frosting”. I feel a civic duty as a self-proclaimed food blogger to share my culinary efforts, both successful and otherwise, to illustrate precisely what and what not to do in abnormal baking practices. So learn from my mistakes so you don’t have to make them yourself 😀

  First up: get your jar of speculoos into the bowl. This was almost the whole jar, but I used 1 cup. You’ll need an electric mixer or kitchen stand to get the spread whipped.

See the color change? Good! I should have stopped there and forgotten the rest but….NAH

Check out this gif! Gonna try to make this a thing, hopefully better. Not bad for a last-minute decision, though.

Cue heavy cream. Except don’t, because this will happen. As they say, don’t fix it if it ain’t broke! I think with just some powdered sugar and more mixing it would have been 👌. So don’t add heavy cream. Maybe don’t add sugar either because it’s all so sweet to begin with.

K moving right along…the cupcakes themselves were really great so we’ll get right to it. There was no cocoa powder in this recipe and just a half cup of chocolate chips. Melt with butter and you’re good to go.

Time for whisking! With a fancy pointy whisk that is much easier to wash than the normal round ones.

More whisking with the cute should-have-sifted-these-together-but-didn’t mini whisk

Mix it up

Add crushed raspberries

Check it out – before rubber scraper, after rubber scraper!

How cute. So moist and dark.

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes with Speculoos Frosting
This is what I would recommend you to do. Everything described is how it went down, except for the frosting. If you have better luck with yours, leave a comment below and tell me about it!Makes 12 cupcakes

Cupcakes
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 oz bittersweet chocolate (~1/2 cup chips)
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 handful raspberries

Frosting
1 cup speculoos, or cookie butter from TJ’s

Directions
Melt the butter and chocolate together with a double boiler. You can also microwave them. Make sure you mix well if you do this. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt together. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and baking soda together. Add these dry ingredients in increments to the egg mixture. Add the chocolate and butter in two rounds, still using a whisk. Mash up the raspberries; you can use a potato masher, a fork, or your hands. Just make sure to get all the juice.
Pour the batter into a muffin tin lined with paper, two thirds to three quarters of the way up. Place in the oven at 350° for 18 minutes.

For the frosting, put the speculoos in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or large bowl, using an electric mixer. Mix on medium speed until the color has gotten much lighter and the speculoos is less dense. Add some powdered sugar if you dare. Once the cupcakes have cooled down, spread the frosting on the cupcakes and enjoy!

Grab some milk. You’ll need it.