First and foremost, today is my blog’s 4th birthday! Funny story – last year I thought it was the 4th birthday. Posted it and everything. Realized later but I just figured I would correct it this time. Haha!
To celebrate my bloggy birthday I made some special cupcakes. These cupcakes were actually inspired by drumstick ice cream cones.
The cupcake is a vanilla bean cake, there is a gooey chocolate center, and the perfect chocolate frosting on top!
Originally I was going to bake these in ice cream cones, but I didn’t have enough. I had some of these adorable cupcake cups left over from a wedding last year so I thought they would be perfect.
I used boxed white cake and added the caviar from one vanilla bean to the batter. It reminded me perfectly of vanilla bean ice cream. The little flecks are so pretty! I need to add it to things more often!
Once they cupcakes were baked and cooled, I used a small corer to cut a hole in the top of each cupcake. (A small knife would work fine too.) Then I filled each hole with chocolate pudding. I didn’t have any on hand so I made my own! (Recipe below.)
I topped each with this smooth creamy chocolate frosting. It’s so perfect, I am definitely going to be coming back to this recipe again!
Homemade Chocolate Pudding (Hershey’s recipe, found here)
Ingredients:
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
1. In a medium pot, mix together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, and salt. Slowly add milk. (It looked so weird at this point so I took pictures so you don’t freak out when it looks weird to you too.)
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. It will sloooowly stir together well then start to thicken up. Once it starts to boil, let it boil for 1 minute then remove from the heat. (It took so long! Okay maybe just 10-15 minutes, but it feels like forever when you’re stirring constantly.)
3. Stir in butter and vanilla.
4. Cover surface with plastic wrap to prevent a “skin” from forming on the top, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
*I didn’t have 2 hours to wait, so I put a little of the pudding into a piping bag, cut the tip, and squeezed a bit into each cupcake white it was still warm.
Perfect Chocolate Frosting (recipe by My Frugal Adventures, found here)
Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups powdered sugar
6 tbsp cocoa powder
5 tbsp milk
6 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
1. Whisk together powdered sugar and cocoa, set aside.
2. Cream butter with mixer until creamy. Slowly add powdered sugar mixture, alternating with milk.
3. Scrape sides of bowl and add vanilla, the mix again to incorporate.
As you may know, I’m not the biggest chocolate fan, but I did try these and they were so yummy! The gooey center is a fun addition to the cupcake, and the frosting isn’t too over-the-top rich. Perfect combo. 🙂
Cookie Carrie 