Chocolate cheesecake cupcakes

I made a cake 2 weeks ago. (The picture is from Christine's blog, the address is below.)

This cake; http://chewnibblenosh.com/2013/05/28/chocolate-italian-love-cake/
Absolutely fabulous so I wanted to make it again. I finally had a good enough excuse and made it this morning. As cupcakes. Fabulous.
So experimented just a tiny bit. I had to use 2 15 ounce packages of ricotta so I weighed out 2 ounces of cream cheese and beat it before putting the ricotta cheese in. I made 24 cupcakes and had enough to fill my au gratin pan.

  I put some of the cupcakes with the cheese on the bottom to start and some the cheese was on the top.

  Here is how one of the cheese on top came out, (I HAD to bite it so you could see inside). Wonderful. The one with the cheese on bottom did not taste as good and it made the paper soggy 'cause it doesn't have the thin layer of chocolate at the bottom.

I wish I'd used a foil cupcake liner AND I wish I'd put them all with the cheese on top. The frosting should be piped to look pretty on the cupcakes BUT the missionaries won't careand I really dislike washing the piping stuff.  I am going to look for liners for the larger muffin pans, these clearly should be bigger!

edit* When you go to the link you will find that the recipe states that you can vary the flavors. I haven't managed to do it but a friend has and I got to taste 2 different ones;

• strawberry cake with vanilla pudding in the frosting and strawberries sliced on top
• Lemon cake with lemon pudding in the frosting. 

A group of women tasted all three (yes, I baked 2 chocolate ones for the tasting).  and I heard some say they liked the lemon best, another said they liked the strawberry best. Me? I liked all of them, but still prefer the chocolate. 3/20/14

edit* I made this AGAIN for a cake auction, I divided it into 2 smaller foil pans and made it cheese cakier...by substituting some cream cheese and sour cream for some of the ricotta cheese. (Beat the softened 8 oz. cream cheese before adding the other ingredients) Really I did it very roughly in my head and used what I had in the fridge. I love the flavor 1 Tablespoon vanilla adds to these too. One I even put a tablespoon of lemon juice in, so good. Oh, and I had some leftover regular frosting (the recipe for the frosting is here...not regular frosting really) in the fridge that I thinned with heavy cream and then folded into the cool whip with the pudding. The 2 cakes sold for $90 at the cub scout cake auction on April 4, 2014.
*edit, again...I made this 3/1/2015 Went to the store and bought just the ingredients for this cake and it was $12.29. Well worth it. One thing I learned the last time I made it my husband bought the low fat ricotta cheese and IT WAS NOT AS GOOD. Get the whole milk kind; it's a treat, just don't eat it everyday!

August 19, 2016
I took my version of this cake to the Jefferson, Idaho County fair Death by Chocolate contest. It won 2nd place in the senior division. I did not get a ribbon; I got an envelope with $ 15.00 dollars in it. Then anyone there could taste the food the judges did not eat. I grabbed my cake and brought it home when there were 3 small pieces left. (I used 1 Tablespoon of the Mexican vanilla I had and I think it was too much.) I'd like to make it even cheese cakier next time...maybe red velvet cheese cake....