Cherry Bomb Cupcakes

And let the celebrating continue with Father's Day and Cherry Bomb Cupcakes.
Cook's notes: This recipe was inspired by Midwest Living Magazine. It puts the sizzle in your baking pairing chocolate with cherries and is a crowd pleaser. I added flags for a festive touch. These cupcakes would be a great addition for your 4th of July celebration. The batter is a little runny but bakes into a moist cupcake. This batter can be used to make a 13 x 9 chocolate cake or 22 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

• 1-10 - ounce jar maraschino cherries 
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil 
• 2 cups flour
• 1-1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 TB. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup freshly brewed coffee
• 2 TB Kirsch (cherry brandy) or 2 TB. cherry juice
• 2-1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

• Drain cherries, reserving juice; set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. 
• In a bowl beat egg, buttermilk, oil, kirsch or cherry juice and coffee on low speed until until combined. 
• Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and blend well for 2 minutes on medium speed. 
• Spoon 2 tablespoons of the batter into each cupcake liner. Place one cherry into batter of each cupcake. 
• Cover cherry with batter so cupcake liners are 3/4 full of batter.
• Bake in a 350 degrees oven. Start checking at 15 minutes to see if they are done. 
• Cool cupcakes in pans on wire racks for 2 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pans; cool completely on wire racks.
• In a medium bowl combine powdered sugar and several tablespoons of reserved cherry juice. Add additional juice, 1 teaspoon at a time, to make an icing of drizzling consistency. Drizzle icing over cupcakes, add red and blue sprinkles and top with a cherry. Refrigerate cupcakes 30 minutes to set icing. 

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Billy Collins remembered his father in this poem"The Death of the Hat." It evoked memories of my growing up years when my father always wore a hat and an overcoat when he left the house. 

Billy writes...
On Father's Day, "The Death of the Hat." For all of the fathers out there and for everyone who had (or has) a father. Hats off to you.

THE DEATH OF THE HAT
by Billy Collins June 16, 2013

Once every man wore a hat.

In the ashen newsreels,
the avenues of cities
are broad rivers flowing with hats.

The ballparks swelled
with thousands of straw hats,
brims and bands,
rows of men smoking
and cheering in shirtsleeves.

Hats were the law.
They went without saying.
You noticed a man without a hat in a crowd.

You bought them from Adams or Dobbs
who branded your initials in gold
on the inside band.

Trolleys crisscrossed the city.
Steamships sailed in and out of the harbor.
Men with hats gathered on the docks.

There was a person to block your hat
and a hatcheck girl to mind it
while you had a drink
or ate a steak with peas and a baked potato.
In your office stood a hat rack.

The day the war was declared
everyone in the street was wearing a hat
and they were wearing hats
when a ship loaded with men sank in the icy sea.

My father wore one to work every day
and returned home
carrying the evening paper,
the winter chill radiating from his overcoat.

But today we go bareheaded
into the winter streets,
stand hatless on frozen platforms.

Today the mailboxes on the roadside
and the spruce trees behind the house
wear cold white hats of snow.

Mice scurry from the stone walls at night
in their thin fur hats
to eat the birdseed that has spilled.

And now my father, after a life of work,
wears a hat of earth,
and on top of that,

A lighter one of cloud and sky--a hat of wind.