Happy Valentine's Day! Have a Faux- stess

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! 

 

Love (and flour) is in the air in our house. We made some little faux hostess cupcakes to give out as our valentine's this year... I am calling them my little faux-stess. They look harder then they really are. With a bit of time and a well planned assembly line, it is a snap.

First off you need to make a chocolate cupcake. Your favorite recipe will do, or here is the one I used from Hoosier Homemade. 

Chocolate Cake

you will need:

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 c. AP flour

3/4 c. cocoa

1 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 c. oil
3/4 c. buttermilk (or use buttermilk powder or add a splash of vinegar to a cup of reg. milk)

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 c. hot coffee

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your muffin tins with liners. In a large bowl whisk your sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda & salt together. Set aside. In a your standing mixer bowl add your eggs, oil, buttermilk and vanilla. Slowly add your dry ingredients to the wet. After it is all incorporated, add  the hot coffee. Mix well. Fill the cupcake papers 1/3 full. Bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let them dry on completely on a cooling rack.

 Then you are ready for the fun part! Filling and decorating. I used a recipe for the filling from Cook's Country February/March 2010 edition. The filling was:

3 Tbsp. water

3/4 tsp. unflavored gelatin

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1 tsp. vanilla

a pinch of salt

1 1/4 marshmallow creme

Dissolve gelatin in the water. Then heat for 30 seconds in the microwave. It will bubble around the edges. Stir in the rest of the ingredients except the marshmallow creme. Let this mixture cool until room temp and them whip into the creme. Refrigerate this till it cools and sets, about 30 minutes.

Then using a pairing knife, cut a cone out of each cupcake. Cut the bottom off the plug and after filling the cupcake with filling, replace the top of the plug.

Don't overfill the cupcakes so it is easier to get smooth glaze on the top. For the glaze, I used 1 cup of a mixture of milk and semi-sweet chips + 1/2 cup of cream. I heated this in my double boiler and let it cool to room temp. It should still be fluid enough to dip the cupcakes. Dip the tops and turn them on their sides to let the excess drip off. Then place them on a cooling rack to dry. I let mine dry for 3 hours before decorating the tops.

This is the best part of course! Decorating. I used a size 4 Wilton tip and a disposable icing bag. You can use any type of frosting, but I had a tub of Wilton's Decorator Icing which piped beautifully. Okay, it took me a few tries to get the hang of it, but that is only because I am a cake decorating novice.

Have fun and I hope you are enjoying your Valentine's Day!