Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

These cupcakes take a bit of work, but they are definitely worth it. The mousse is slightly bittersweet, but balanced nicely by the frosting and the rich devil's food of the cupcakes. If the frosting is too sweet for you -- it was for my mother -- you can leave the cupcakes uniced and just enjoy the pure chocolate goodness.

Cupcakes:

3/8 cup cocoa powder

3/8 cup hot water

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup (1 1/2 stick) butter

1 1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together cocoa and hot water until all lumps are dissolved. Set aside. Sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in another bowl and set aside.

Melt butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to keep sugar from burning, until butter is totally melted. Remove saucepan from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Beat until mixture is somewhat cooled. You want it to be cool enough that when you beat in the eggs, they won't cook from the heat.

Add in eggs, one at a time. Add in vanilla, then cocoa mixture.

Add in flour mixture and sour cream, beating only until ingredients are fully combined.

Fill cupcake tins 2/3 full. Bake 10 minutes, turn tins, bake 10 minutes. Let cool.

Mousse:

1 tbsp cocoa powder

3 tbsp hot water

4 oz (1 bar) bittersweet chocolate, like Ghirardelli.

3/4 cup cold heavy cream

1 tbsp sugar

As with the cupcakes, whisk the cocoa powder and water until smooth and set aside.

Melt chocolate over a double boiler or by putting a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool.

In the meantime, whip the cream and sugar. Be careful to time it right and stop as soon as soft peaks form. Otherwise the cream will whip into butter.

Whisk cocoa powder into the melted chocolate, then fold in the whipped cream until the mixture is smooth.

Frosting:

4 oz marshmallow fluff

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, soft

1 tsp almond extract

2 cups xxx sugar

food coloring/decorations, as desired

It's hard to measure ounces on marshmallow fluff, since it doesn't really want to go into a measuring cup or scale, so with that in mind: I used a little more than half of one of those 7 oz jars. Beat together the fluff, butter, and almond extract until creamy. Sift in the xxx sugar.

If the frosting is too thick to pipe, you can add a tablespoon or so of cream. Do this 1 tablespoon at a time.

When the frosting is the right thickness for piping, add any color that you would like.

Putting it together:

Core a hole in the center of each of the cooled cupcakes. I used an apple corer, as pictured, which is still my favorite tool for coring cupcakes, but a small serrated knife also works well.

Fill each hole with a generous helping of mousse, then store cupcakes in the fridge or freezer for about 20 minutes until the mousse is firm enough to pipe over.

Pipe a spiral of frosting over each cupcake, being sure to cover the mousse. Decorate as desired.

Adapted from Lady Behind the Curtain