The Cake Plays Second Fiddle But the Cupcake Sings: Creamy Peanut Butter-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache
I decided to make Abby Dodge's "Creamy Peanut Butter-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache" from The Everyday Baker to celebrate an office birthday. I needed only a small amount of baked goods and thought that a layer cake would be too much; a dozen cupcakes would be equally festive but more manageable.
To make the cupcakes, you cream room temperature butter with brown sugar until light and fluffy; add an egg, an egg yolk, and vanilla; mix in natural cocoa powder that has been mixed with boiling water; and fold in the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt). I noticed some persistent lumps of flour in the batter and took the extra step of putting the batter through a sieve before baking the cupcakes.
After the cupcakes are completely cool, you fill them with a mixture of creamy peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar. This was easy because I used a pastry bag and a small plastic cupcake corer that is probably the most useful single-purpose kitchen gadget that I own. The corer effortlessly removes neat plugs of cake and as you can see from the photo below, it allows you to get a lot of filling into a cupcake. The frosting is a milk chocolate ganache made with chocolate, heavy cream, butter, and a little salt. You to apply the ganache after it has cooled to a spreadable consistency; I kept a close eye on the ganache while it was cooling and caught it when it was just the right consistency to pipe with a pastry bag and hold its shape.
After assembling the cupcakes I had a pile of cupcake cores sitting around and of course I tasted one. I was not impressed. While the cake was springy and tender, it didn't have much flavor. However, I also had leftover filling and ganache. I tried another core with a squeeze of peanut butter filling. Delicious. I tried a third core with a dab of ganache. Amazing. So I concluded that the cake might just serve as a conveyance for the other two elements, but I didn't have a problem with that since the end result tasted fantastic. And yeah, I ended up eating all of the remaining cupcake cores with filling, ganache, or both.
The recipe instructs you to store the cupcakes in the refrigerator and even though I hate refrigerating ganache -- because it always becomes hard even if you bring it back to room temperature before serving -- I followed the directions. I think I probably should have left the cupcakes out at room temperature overnight (we're still having winter weather around these parts and the kitchen was cool) because the frosting wasn't as creamy after chilling. But these cupcakes were wonderful and I would definitely make them again. Dodge says that you can bake the cupcakes in advance, so in the future I would probably make the cupcakes the day before and fill and frost them close to serving time so I could avoid having to refrigerate them.
Recipe: "Creamy Peanut Butter-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache" from The Everyday Baker by Abigail Dodge.
To make the cupcakes, you cream room temperature butter with brown sugar until light and fluffy; add an egg, an egg yolk, and vanilla; mix in natural cocoa powder that has been mixed with boiling water; and fold in the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt). I noticed some persistent lumps of flour in the batter and took the extra step of putting the batter through a sieve before baking the cupcakes.
After the cupcakes are completely cool, you fill them with a mixture of creamy peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar. This was easy because I used a pastry bag and a small plastic cupcake corer that is probably the most useful single-purpose kitchen gadget that I own. The corer effortlessly removes neat plugs of cake and as you can see from the photo below, it allows you to get a lot of filling into a cupcake. The frosting is a milk chocolate ganache made with chocolate, heavy cream, butter, and a little salt. You to apply the ganache after it has cooled to a spreadable consistency; I kept a close eye on the ganache while it was cooling and caught it when it was just the right consistency to pipe with a pastry bag and hold its shape.
The recipe instructs you to store the cupcakes in the refrigerator and even though I hate refrigerating ganache -- because it always becomes hard even if you bring it back to room temperature before serving -- I followed the directions. I think I probably should have left the cupcakes out at room temperature overnight (we're still having winter weather around these parts and the kitchen was cool) because the frosting wasn't as creamy after chilling. But these cupcakes were wonderful and I would definitely make them again. Dodge says that you can bake the cupcakes in advance, so in the future I would probably make the cupcakes the day before and fill and frost them close to serving time so I could avoid having to refrigerate them.
Recipe: "Creamy Peanut Butter-Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache" from The Everyday Baker by Abigail Dodge.
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