Mini Rollo Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Mini Rollo Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp white vinegar

48 rollo candies, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift together flour, soda, and cocoa powder. Stir sugar and oil together in a mixing bowl, then add in flour mixture, water, vanilla, and vinegar. Stir until smooth; make sure there are no flour lumps in the batter, as this happens really easily.

Line a mini cupcake tray with wrappers, and fill 3/4 full of batter.

Bake for 7 minutes. Remove cupcakes and quickly insert a rollo into the center of each. It should sink in a little, but not be covered by the batter. As you can see that some of the rollos are visible and some aren't. The ones that aren't were where I tried to insert the rollos at five minutes; they ended up sinking to the bottom and sticking to the cupcake wrappers, so I recommend seven minutes. Since you're going to frost the cupcakes, it doesn't matter if the rollos are visible on top.

Ganache:

12 oz semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup heavy cream

48 rollo candies, unwrapped

Heat the cream in a saucepan until it comes to a boil. Immediately pour it over the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, then stir until totally combined and smooth. Refrigerate for several hours, or until firm.

Spoon the ganache into a piping bag and pipe little swirls onto the tops of the cupcakes, covering the rollos. I meant to take pictures of this process as I did it, and then forgot, but as you can see, the spirals don't need to be perfect, because once you have piped them you should quickly place a rollo on top of the ganache as an accent. I also used edible silver sprinkles for accents.

The original recipe directed you to make your own caramel filling, but I have had bad luck in this area. If you melt kraft caramels they have a tendency to reharden into solid lumps of rock-hard caramel, so I prefer to use the rollo, which stays soft even after being melted.

I will say that the recipe made exactly 50 mini cupcakes, and there was exactly the right amount of ganache, which has not been my experience with Martha Stewart recipes, which often lie about this key feature. So excellent!

Adapted from Design Bake Run.