Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes with Mint Buttercream

April 22, 2010

It seems like some weeks things just don’t turn out how I hope they will in the kitchen. This week I have been experimenting with gluten-free baking and so far have not had much success. I have a huge batch of gluten-free challah dough in the fridge that is barely edible. My son, the challah lover, took one bite of the test loaf and gave it back. I hate to waste food so if anyone has suggestions for salvaging it I am all ears. These cupcakes were my second gluten-free attempt. I had high hopes for them, because the cupcake part was based on a recipe from the Cupcake Bakeshop and that woman sure knows her cupcakes. They weren’t bad, certainly a passible gluten-free dessert, but they were not great either. The texture of the cupcakes wasn’t quite right. However, I loved the combination of chocolate ganache and mint buttercream on a chocolate cupcake. The frosting was definitely the most popular part. I am posting the ganache and buttercream recipes and recommend using them with your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe. If you are a chocolate lover don’t forget to enter the giveaway to win Chocolate Obsession.

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Ingredients & Quantities

Chocolate Ganache Layer

1 cup (8 oz) unsweetened coconut milk (not cream of coconut), well mixed 9 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped  

Mint Buttercream

1/2 cup margarine
6 oz toffuti cream cheese
3/4 lb 10X confectioners’ sugar
1/4-1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract, or to taste

Cooking Instructions

Chocolate Ganache Layer

Place chocolate in a large bowl. Heat coconut milk until just boiling, either on the stovetop or in the microwave. Pour hot coconut milk over the chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk gently until completely smooth. If some chocolate remains unmelted microwave the mixture on 50% power in 15 second intervals, whisking after each one, until the chocolate is completely melted. Refrigerate until thick, at least one hour before spooning into cupcakes.

 

Mint Buttercream

Cream margarine and cream cheese together for 3 minutes. Stop and scrape the bowl. Sift the sugar. Beat sugar 1 cup at a time into the margarine mixture. Add the peppermint extract and beat to combine. Start with the smaller quantity of peppermint extract and add more to taste.

2 Comments

  1. Mmm. .. coconut chocolate ganache and mint buttercream sounds divine!

    I just made Julia Child’s La Charlotte Africaine, which uses cake crumbs. I used the recipe to recycle leftover cake that was okay, but not great. I haven’t posted about it yet, but the recipe is in the second volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There is also the option of making rum balls (like chocolate rum truffles, danlepard.com).

    There are cakes that use bread crumbs, too. Or, is it raw dough that is leftover? Sometimes not so great bread dough makes pretty good pizza. It depends what is not so good about the bread or dough. If it is really bad, it is better to cut your losses than to waste more ingredients. When this happens to me, I just stick it in the freezer with the best of intentions to deal with it later and then toss it before Passover. 😉

    • Thanks for the great suggestions! I had already bookmarked those rum truffles from your site to make next time a cake falls apart. I wasn’t quite ready to give up on the dough, and since it was raw I couldn’t just freeze it for “later” (I do the same thing with unloved baked goods you do). I ended up turning it into surprisingly delicious monkey bread. I’ll post the recipe later this week.

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