Make someone feel beloved this week with the help of rich, chocolate-y cake and a hint of tart cream cheese filling. In honor of St. Valentine, we dropped a red hot candy into the center of each cupcake. The candies melt inside the cupcake, adding a bit of cinnamon flavor and a smudge of red to remind us to be good to each other. (Or to incite your fear of blood-borne disease.)

One great thing about these cupcakes is that they don’t need frosting; the greatest thing about them is the taste. In all the versions of this that we have enjoyed over the years, the cake part was not as delicious as we thought it should be. So we got to work and now it is. These are hard to resist when they first come out of the oven and the insides are warm and gooey, but they are also superb at room temperature a day or two later. 

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE FILLING

Makes 12 to 16

• 3/4 cup flour

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 cup natural cocoa (try Dutch process for a milder flavor)

• 2 eggs, at room temperature

• 1 cup milk (whole if you have it)

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

• 1 tablespoon vinegar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

  For the filling:

• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature (very important)

• 1 egg, at room temperature

• 1/3 c sugar

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1 c mini or regular chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tins with paper cups (or grease and flour them if you don’t have cups)

Measure the dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir with a whisk or a hand-held mixer on low (careful or the ingredients will fly!).

Measure all the filling ingredients (except chocolate chips) into a medium-small bowl. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips.

Measure the eggs, oil, milk, vinegar, and vanilla into a medium-small bowl. Mix.

Add dry to wet ingredients and mix until there are no streaks of flour. (This order of instructions may seem counterintuitive, but measuring and mixing this way allows you to do it all with one set of beaters and not get any chocolate batter into your filling.)

Fill each cup 3/4 full with chocolate batter, then add a generous (1 to 2 Tbs) dollop of cream cheese filling to the center. The filling will sink as it bakes.

Bake twenty to twenty-five minutes. Serve immediately for a gooey experience, and then eat another one later. And then another the following day, for each will have its own shades of goodness.