You read the title right. A few months ago I made key lime chocolate cupcakes. Sounds like an odd combination right? That’s what I thought before I made them. Let me give you some background so you know how I ended up making such a interesting dessert.

As you probably know by now I love to bake, but without a rationale excuse (such as a function or group who will eat more than 3/4s of it so Luke and I don’t) I find it hard to make anything. Luke kept telling me anything I could baked would always be well received at his work. But I told him I didn’t have any fun new challenging recipes or a good enough excuse. Then one day Luke came home and told me, that’s right he didn’t asked he told me, I would be making key lime chocolate cupcake for his co-workers (no pressure).

Here’s how his story went: Luke and some of his co-workers were watching some cooking or baking show on TV in the break room which highlighted odd combination desserts/foods that actually tasted great. One of which, as you can guess, was key lime chocolate cupcakes. Then apparently everyone was craving these odd combo cupcakes curious if they were any good. Luke, remembering hearing I’d love the excuse to bake something and knowing I loved new challenging baking experiences, decided to guarantee his co-workers that I could and would make these for them.

After I heard this story, I began looking up elements for the cupcakes. In the end I decided on a base of  devil’s food cake mix. Yes, I prefer do all baking from scratch, but with so many experimental elements I wanted something to go predictably smooth. To make the cake mix I chose for the first time to use greek yogurt instead of eggs and oil. I had done this for years with brownies (see February is synonymous for chocolate right?) but following the trend on pinterest I decided to see how well it worked.

While the cupcakes baked, I made my own key lime cream cheese icing using a combination of cream cheese, powdered sugar, lime juice, and key lime zest.

After many adjustments and several taste test from Luke, I finally was satisfied.  I then colored the icing a light but bright green using the neon set of food dies.

The chocolate cupcakes had a moist velvety texture (which I definitely give the greek yogurt credit for). This light soft texture balanced perfectly with the heavier cream cheese with a nice citrus kick of key lime. Since I had no sprinkles to decorate with I chose to dust the top of the cupcakes with a little lime zest.

When Luke took the cupcakes to work people were a little skeptical. Since lime zest is not common, they were unsure thinking Luke was trying to feed them healthy bran/veggies muffin-like cupcakes. Once the confusion was cleared up and people felt safe to eat them, they went over very well.

As the TV show indicated, this odd combination tasted amazing and the chocolate and lime worked together perfectly.