White Chocolate-Filled Devil’s Food Cupcakes with White Chocolate Ganache Frosting

For the filling and frosting:

Make the white chocolate ganache ahead, and chill in the fridge while making the batter.

There are a lot of ways to make the ganache:

– In a double boiler, melt white chocolate, cream and butter. Stir continuously until completely melted. Remove from heat, stir frequently until the mixture is smooth and glossy.

– In the same manner, place white chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream over medium heat. Pour the piping hot cream over the white chocolate and butter, and stir continuously until smooth and glossy.

If you want a firmer filling, you can pop this into the freezer for 15-20 minutes but make sure that it doesn’t harden too much.

For the cupcakes:

Adjust the oven rack to the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/175C. Line a 12-count muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Sift together the cocoa powder, cake flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl.

In another bowl, beat together the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until smooth and creamy. Add the egg, mix until fully incorporated. Scrape the edges of the bowl as necessary.

Mix together the dissolved coffee and milk. Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then add the coffee and milk. Finally stir in the other half of the dry ingredients.

(You would want to take the white chocolate ganache out of the fridge at this point.)

Pour one scoop (I use a 2 ounce ice cream scooper) of batter into individual muffin tins. Scoop a dollop of white chocolate ganache in the center and pour another scoop of batter on top to “seal” the filling in.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in pan for 3-5 minutes and cool completely on wire rack.

Once cool, frost cupcakes with the remaining white chocolate ganache. Since I can’t do the beautiful swirls (not yet, at least!) , I just glaze/smooth it over the tops of the cupcakes using a straight spatula (I can’t get hold of a nice offset spatula where I’m from).

If you want to pipe the frosting and make beautiful swirls, please be my guest! But don’t forget to whip the ganache to achieve that nice and stiff frosting.