The Best Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Frosting

Today I needed to make some quick cupcakes for…well, just because I wanted to! ha. So I made the old classic stand-by, the best chocolate cupcakes recipe. And just let me give you a little tip. And keep this near and dear to your heart. If you don’t use a good quality cocoa in this recipe, it will turn out sub-par. Trust me. I’ve done many tests and trials. Try to use a full out cocoa powder that is really dark in colour and smells like strong chocolate. It will give it a much deeper and richer flavour. Also make sure to use natural cocoa powder and not alkalized or ‘dutch processed’ cocoa (dutch processed, or alkalized cocoa has been processed with an alkali to neutralize the acids in it. So when you use a natural cocoa powder that still has its acids, it reacts with the baking soda in the recipe to help it rise in the oven. This is what makes this recipe so good. Perhaps I should edit it to specifically say natural cocoa powder..hmm..)

The cocoa that I use is from a natural foods store. It’s called Ambrosia Natural Foods and I buy their big bags of cocoa whenever I’m in the area It just tastes much better than anything like Hershey’s or your store brand since most of those are dutch processed (well, they are in my area anyways). But hey! That’s just my tastebuds talking. They like a deeper chocolate flavour in things (:

So for the frosting on the cupcakes, I made a quick ganache with 8oz of callebaut milk chocolate and 3/4 cup of hot heavy cream. Then when it was liquid and warm I whipped it in my stand-mixer for a few minutes until it was cool and held its shape so it could be piped easily.

Voila! Delicious and easy cupcakes.

And I promise to have an actual new recipe soon! I’ve been busy making halloween costumes lately so I haven’t had much time to experiment with many new recipes.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream

I really wanted to bake today but didn’t know what. I decided I’d make these cupcakes again! The perfect chocolate cupcake recipe is what I used. Then I made some random quick buttercream that I ended up not liking that much. But that’s just because I don’t like these kind of frostings, you know the ones that are made with butter and icing sugar? I don’t like them. Whenever I eat them I feel sick and I don’t know why. Maybe because of too much over-indulgance as a kid when my mom would make it. I feel this would be good with a french merangue buttercream. Since the cupcake recipe is already on this blog, I will include the french merangue buttercream recipe that I love so much (:

French Merangue Buttercream (this recipe makes around 4lbs of buttercream. I’ve scaled it down before with no bad results. It turned out perfectly fine!)

680 grams of sugar
1/2 cup of water
12 egg yolks (1 cup)
2 lbs of room temperature, unsalted butter
2 tsp of whatever flavour you want!

Place the sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil while stirring to disolve the sugar. Once the sugar is disolved, reduce the heat and let it boil until the temperature reaches 240F
While the syrup is boiling, whip up the egg yolks until they are pale and thick. Lower the speed to around medium and then carefully pour the sugar syrup (once it is at the correct temperature) down the side of the bowl into the egg yolks. Whip at the highest speed until the mixture is cool and looks light and fluffy. This can take anywhere between 15-20 minutes.
Once the mixture is cooled and the bowl is cold to the touch (like how it feels at room temperature) you can turn the speed to low and gradually add the softened butter. Once the butter is all mixed in, mix in the flavourings! This also tastes really good even without vanilla or anything in it.

Yum!