Chocolate Cream Cupcakes

It's 9:30 on a Tuesday morning.  The bowl of Cheerios with sliced bananas that I had for breakfast at 7:00am seems like a distant memory.  My stomach and my mind are having an internal battle:  "Should I?"  "No, don't do it!"  "But I'm reeeealy hungry!"  "You'll regret it later."  "Oh shush!"  Stomach wins!

I grab a dollar from my purse, make my way down to the vending machine in our office kitchen, and start to browse.  Chips?  No.  Candy bar?  Nah.  Same bag of cashews that seemingly has been in the machine for the past 3 years?  Um, no.  Oooh, what's this??  Hostess Cupcakes??  And we have a winner!

As I walk back to my office, I'm happily thinking about how much I used to love Hostess Cupcakes as a kid.  Chocolatey cupcakes with a rich creamy filling...mmmmm!  Am I in for a treat!

I sit down at my desk, quickly unwrap them, and take my first bite, waiting for the nostalgia to wash over me...but wait...hmmm...something isn't right here.  I take another bite.  These cupcakes are...well, they're OK.  Only OK.  There's nothing wrong with them, they just aren't anything spectacular.

As I polish off the first of the two cupcakes, I decide to read the ingredient list.  Egads!!!  I'm eating a chemical cupcake!  (This did not stop me from gobbling down the second cupcake, mind you.)  But it gets me thinking..."Didn't I see a recipe for a homemade version of these cupcakes recently?"  To the Internet!

The first places I check are my go-to recipe sources, Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country.  Sure enough, Cook's Country has just the recipe I was looking for.  So I make up my shopping list, hit the store on the way home from work, and let the baking begin!

Start by heating the oven to 325 degrees and grease and flour a 12-cup muffin tin.

In the first bowl you see, I have combined 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.  In the large glass bowl, I have 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips, and 1 tablespoon of instant espresso.  The other ingredients here are 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 2 large eggs, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.















I added 1/2 cup of boiling water to the cocoa, chocolate chips, and espresso, and whisked it until it was smooth.  Then I added the sugar, sour cream, oil, eggs, and vanilla and mixed that until it was all combined.

Next, I whisked in the flour until it was incorporated.

I divided the batter evenly amongst the muffin cups.

And baked them for 18-22 minutes (22 in my case) until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake came out with just a few dry crumbs. 















I cooled the cupcakes in the tin for 10 minutes...

then turned them out onto a wire rack and let them cool completely.

While the cupcakes cooled, I worked on the cream filling.

In a large bowl, I combined 3 tablespoons of water with 3/4 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin.  I let this sit for about 5 minutes.  Then I microwaved the mixture for about 30 seconds, until the mixture was bubbling around the edges and the gelatin had dissolved.

Next, I stirred in 4 tablespoons of softened, unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.

Then I let the mixture cool for about 5 minutes, and whisked in 1 1/4 cups marshmallow creme (fluff).

It's tough to whisk in the fluff at first.  It's very sticky and clumpy.

But if you just keep whisking...

and whisking...

and whisking...eventually all the lumps will smooth out and you'll have a nice creamy mixture, like this:

Once this was all smooth, I put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, to set.

While I waited for the filling, I started on the glaze and the cupcake assembly.

I microwaved 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips with 3 tablespoons of butter, stopping to stir every 30 seconds, until the mixture was smooth.

Next, I cut a cone shape out of the top of each of the cupcakes...

and then sliced off the inner part of the cone.

This left me with a plate full of cupcake innards.  What to do, what to do?  (I'll let you figure it out.)

A handy tip is to keep the tops next to their corresponding cupcakes.  This way you won't run into tops that no longer seem to fit once you assemble them.

By this point in the process, the filling was ready to come out of the fridge.  I put 1/3 cup of the cream filling into a plastic bag fitted with a small plain tip.  (To be used for decorating later.)

With the rest of the filling, I spooned it evenly into the cupcake bases...

and put the tops back on to each of the cupcakes.

Next, using a spoon, I glazed each of the cupcakes, making sure to have the chocolate cover the cut parts of the cupcake.

Once they were all glazed, I piped little white swirls across the cupcakes.

Technically speaking, Hostess Cupcakes all have seven swirls.  That's OK...I still think mine are pretty!

Here's what they look like on the inside.  Ooooooh...Aaaaaah!

These cupcakes were so much tastier than the Hostess Cupcakes.  They have so much more chocolate flavor, and they taste like they were made with real ingredients.  (Imagine that.)  Plus, they're fun to make. Start to finish, I'd say that these took me about an hour and a half to make.

My husband and co-workers loved them, so I'm adding this recipe to my 'keepers' file!

For the full recipe, check out Cook's Country - Chocolate Cream Cupcakes.