Chocolate Espresso Cupcakes with Adzuki Filling and Matcha Cream Cheese Frosting

Yep, exactly what the title says. I adapted the recipe from Cupcake Bakeshop’s.

I cheated and didn’t use her adzuki recipe. Instead, I just bought the pre-packaged, pre-sweetened red bean rectangles from the asian store and mixed them with the hand mixer until it was more paste like and less gel. I also used my grandmother’s mochi recipe to make the mochi, but I wasn’t happy with it — I recommend the linked recipe above. For some reason the adzuki didn’t turn out the same, and this recipe made 37 cupcakes instead of 24! I think they might have burnt a little bit because they smelled like burnt coffee, but it might have just been me.

The frosting was pretty good. Unfortunately, the color changed and by the time they got down to UVA, they looked like savory cupcakes — topped with guacamole and salt and pepper. That ‘salt and pepper’ was actually left over sugar/espresso powder from the holiday espresso cookies (1/2 cup sugar to 1 tablespoon espresso powder). I dusted the tops with matcha (bought from Lotte or Super H Mart, I forget) and a small piece of mochi I cut out with a straw. I should have cut out a larger circle, but didn’t think to get out my pastry tips. *sigh*

‘Twas a good effort! I want to try to make green tea cupcakes with maybe an espresso icing now. We’ll see, we’ll see…

This was the red bean that I used. I bought the tapioca pearl for another recipe I haven’t made yet and I bought different matcha than the ones shown here. The new one I bought was in a small green tin and was about $5 (shown before the cut).