A black bottom cupcake is an American cupcake made with a chocolate batter and a sweet cream cheese center.
The term "black bottom" appears to first have been applied to food in the 1940s, when an Oklahoma chef applied it to a chocolate-and-rum pie, and a black bottom pie recipe was published by Florida author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Cupcake recipes featuring a devil's food base and a cream cheese top became common in the 1960s. The first cookbook to include a "black bottom cupcake" recipe appears to be the 1967 book America Cooks. 21st-century black bottom cupcakes are far more likely to actually be black all around, with only a white (cream cheese) center.