Mini Hostess Cupcakes

This post has nothing to do with jewelry.  Most posts probably won't, even though the blog title is Meredith Fenwick Jewelry.  I might have to change that. :)

So I love Bakerella - she's in my bloglines and I wish I was a cute and cooking-crafty as she is.  The other day, she had a recipe on her blog for mini chocolate chip pancake muffins.  I love pancakes, particularly chocolate chip ones, and muffins are pretty cool, so I thought I'd give it a go.   I cheated though - I'm not a from scratch kind of girl, so I used pancake mix.  It worked pretty well and here is the result...

I decided a good way to store them was to package them up in parcels of six and so I did just that, and that way Gordon can take them to work and Alex can munch a bag for breakfast.

So now I have these mini muffin pans.  What should I do now?  Make mini hostess cupcakes of course!  hehehe...

Okay, so there are all sorts of fake-it recipes out there where you can do them from scratch, but as I stated previously, I'm just not that kind of girl.  So I loaded up the kiddos and we hit Price Chopper for a Duncan Heinz Dark Chocolate Cake Mix, Nestle Tollhouse Semi Sweet Chips (12 oz.), Mini Muffin Paper Cups, Heavy Whipping Cream (for the ganache frosting) and the best part - a tub of white buttercream frosting from Price Chopper's bakery.

So I made the cupcake mix, put the first pan of cakes into the oven to cook and set about figuring out this whole ganache thing.  I know thought it would probably be easy, but was still afraid.  Luckily, Youtube was there to help my worry.  Jamaica from Jamaica's Cakes was there to teach me how to make a ganache in about a minute.  For my ganache I used 3/4 cup heavy cream and 12 oz. semi-sweet nestle tollhouse chips.  It worked well and stayed nice and easy to work with.

By the time that the first back was done, the ganache was close to ready too.

But, first I had to get the filling in the cupcakes.  One of the rip-off hostess recipes I found had this really intricate plan where you are supposed to carve out a cone of cake to put the frosting in.  That, is too much work people.  Here is what you do - fill a pastry bag with the frosting and put on a size 4 round tip.

  Just insert it into the middle of the top of the cupcake and squeeze the frosting in being careful not to explode the cupcake with frosting.  

Once the cupcakes are all set with their filling, you can either dip the tops into the ganache or spread it with a spatula.  I chose the dipping method and it worked out pretty well.  Now, for the finishing touch - take your pastry bag of frosting you were using to fill the cupcakes and that same tip can be used to pipe the frosting loops (or any design you choose) on the tops of the cup cakes.

I like them as minis.  But now I have 72 (okay probably more like 60 because we've been grazing on them since they've been finished) and don't know what to do with them.  That's a heck of a lot of mini cupcakes.  And man, they are tasty.  Probably would be a big hit at a bake sale or something.

In case you want to try these, here is a list of ingredients you'll need.

Chocolate cake mix (and whatever that uses like water, oil, eggs)

Buttercream frosting

Chocolate Chips

Heavy Cream

Piping tips & pastry bag

Mini Muffin Pan