Double Chocolate Cupcakes

I made chocolate cupcakes yesterday for my friend, Danielle's, birthday (yes, my friends have birthdays every week!) Since it was the day after Valentine's Day I was still in the mood to make something Valentine-y. I have been wanting to try these cupcakes that I saw on Pinterest. 156 people pinned them after me so apparently a lot of people want to try them!

So cute, right? They are a homemade version of cream filled Hostess cupcakes. I had some glitches with mine so I will have to try again but everyone loved them anyway so I'll call it a win.

I started with a basic chocolate cake recipe (this one made 20 cupcakes)

Chocolate Cake:

1 cup boiling water

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk (or use 1 cup milk mixed with 1 Tbs. vinegar)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Heat the oven to 350°F. Prepare cupcake pan with liners. Bring some water to boil and keep it simmering while you make the batter. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add the 1 cup boiling water and carefully stir until the water is mixed in; beat for 1 1/2 minutes. Pour 1/3 cup of batter into the each cupcake tin (batter will be thin). Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or just until the top springs back when lightly touched.

Then you fill the cupcakes with cream filling. YUM!

Cream Filling:

2 tsp. very hot water, not boiling

1/4 tsp salt

1 jar marshmallow creme

1/2 cup shortening

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Dissolve salt into hot water and set aside to cool. Whip marshmallow creme, shortening, sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Add water once cool and whip well.

Fill a pastry bag with cream filling. Once your cupcakes have cooled completely, Take your pastry bag full of cooled filling and insert the tip of the pastry bag into the center of the cupcake's top.

It's alright if a little filling is still on the top, that'll get covered with the ganache. But go back in there and clean up what you can so they don't mix and you have a clean finish.

Make sure that you squeeze a generous amount into the cupcake. I cut one of mine in half and this is what I saw... pathetic! Next time I will make sure to squeeze harder!

Then you top the filled cupcakes with a chocolate ganache.

Ganache:

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Place the chocolate into a medium bowl. Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, watching very carefully because if it boils for a few seconds, it will boil out of the pot. When the cream has come to a boil, pour over the chopped chocolate, and whisk until smooth.
Allow the glaze to cool slightly, spoon a little bit of the cooled ganache on each cupcake, and spread lightly. 

Place cupcakes in the fridge and cool for at least 15 minutes

Ganache is kind of finicky and sometimes it doesn't come out all silky and smooth. Mine ended up being totally lumpy and ugly which completely ruined the look of the cupcakes. 

I scrapped my original idea and had to improvise. How to deal with ugly looking chocolate? Cover it with more chocolate! I covered the cupcakes with mini-chocolate chips and called them "double chocolate" cupcakes and no one was the wiser - until now, of course. 

Um, yeah... I meant to do that.