Fauxstess Cupcakes
Cupcakes are kind of my jam. I love how easy it is to experiment with flavor combinations and toppings...the possibilities are endless! And seriously, is there anything cuter than a cupcake? Well, maybe puppies, or Ryan Gosling, or Ryan Gosling surrounded by puppies. I might have to Google that later...
I've made cupcakes for birthday parties, weddings, random work potlucks, so when my mother-in-law asked me to make some cupcakes for a work party they were having, of course I jumped at the chance!
One of my recent biggest requests have been the "Fauxstess" Cupcakes. We all know and love the delicious little Hostess Cupcake with the chocolatey top and the signature white swirls. Well I thought to myself, "I can so recreate this." and thanks to the internet, there are a lot of great recipes and resources on how to mimic the cupcake's flavors and the little white swirls.
For this cupcake, you can use your favorite chocolate cake recipe. I'm going to share with you the best filling and ganache recipe that I have come across for this. I am also posting a step-by -step on how I fill my cupcakes.
First of all, we need our marshmallow filling recipe. This filling also doubles as what you will need to pipe the swirls on top. This recipe is from Willow Bird Baking, one of my favorite baking blogs.
Filling Ingredients 9 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar 1 1/8 cup Marshmallow Fluff 2 tablespoons plus 1 3/4 teaspoon heavy cream
Ganache Ingredients: 3/4 cups heavy cream 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips 5 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
For the filling: Beat the butter, confectioners’ sugar, marshmallow fluff and 2 1/4 tablespoons of the heavy cream together until fluffy. Transfer all but 3/4 cup of this mixture into a pastry bag with a wide tip. Add the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoon of cream to the remaining 3/4 cup of the mixture and beat until smooth. Cover this and save it for decorating the top of the cupcakes later.
For the ganache: Place the chocolate in a medium bowl. Bring the cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan (or heat it for a couple of minutes in the microwave, keeping a watch that it doesn’t boil.) Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let stand 1-2 minutes. Whisk in small circles until a smooth ganache forms.
Here's how I assembled my cupcakes:
First, I take a paring knife and cut a cone-shape out of the middle of the cupcake.
Next, I pipe some of the marshmallow filling into the hole that I created in the cupcake.
Then, with the paring knife, I cut the bottom off of the cone-shaped piece I removed from the cupcake, and place the top back on to cover the filling.
With a small spoon, I drizzled the chocolate ganache over the top of the cupcakes, trying to spread it out to the sides, but not going over the edge of the cupcake wrapper.
At this point, I like to let the ganache set up a little bit on the cupcake before I pipe on the swirls.
What can you do to make the time pass by faster? Well, for starters, you can spoon some of the leftover ganache on the cone-shaped cupcake insides you cut out earlier and enjoy yourself a little snack.
Or you can just class it up like I did and stick the entire damn spatula in your mouth whilst hoping that your husband doesn't walk in on you while you are doing this.
Okay, now that we are on a sugar high and our ganache has set up a bit, take a piping bag and a small round tip, I used Wilton #2, and get your swirl on! Remember to thin out the leftover filling a little bit before piping this on so it will be easier to handle.
And there we have it! Super easy and super cute. You can be creative with the swirling on the top of the cupcakes as well. For Valentine's Day last year, I made these for work but instead of the little swirls, I spelled out the word "love" in cursive on the top...I believe there is a picture of that on my Instagram.
Oh, and here's what happened when I Googled "Ryan Gosling, puppies"
You're welcome.
