Filled Cupcakes for the sweet punch
Servings
2dozen
Servings
2dozen
Ingredients
For the Cupcakes:
For the Vanilla Cream Filling:
For the Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
Instructions
For the Cupcakes:
  1. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C) and lightly grease two 12-cup muffin tins (I used 4-6 cup muffin pans of different shapes)
  2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light.
  3. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by cream and vanilla extract.
  4. In a small bowl, sieve together flour, baking soda and salt.
  5. Add half of flour mixture to the butter mixture, mix nicely and add the rest of the flour mix.
  6. Stir well between each addition and mix until no streaks of flour remain.
  7. Stir the cocoa powder and the dark chocolate into the boiling water
  8. Pour chocolate water into the rest of the batter and stir until uniform.
  9. Evenly distribute batter into prepared baking cups. Bake each tray for 13-15 minutes (it took ~20-22 minutes for me), until a tester comes out clean and the cakes spring back when lightly pressed.
  10. Cool the cupcakes completely and then turn onto a wire rack to remove from the muffin pans.
For the Vanilla butter filling:
  1. Whisk together the flour and milk and cook in a small saucepan over medium heat until thick. This will only take a few minutes.
  2. Stir continuously to prevent the mixture from clumping and do not bring all the way to a boil.
  3. When thickened (consistency will be that of a thin pudding or custard), strain with a mesh strainer into a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool completely to room temperature.
  4. When the milk mixture is cool, cream the butter and sugar together in a medium bowl until light. Add in the milk/flour mixture and the scraped vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla extract) and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 7 minutes, until light and fluffy.
  5. Scrape into a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip, or a large ziplock bag with the corner cut off, and set aside until ready to fill your cupcakes.
  6. For the chocolate butter cream frosting:
  7. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat, with an electric mixer, until frosting is creamy, 3-5 minutes.
  8. Add additional powdered sugar as needed to achieve a thick, but not stiff, frosting that is easy to spread.
  9. Add additional milk, if necessary, to thin the frosting if it gets too thick.
  10. Scrape into a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip or a large ziplock bag with the corner cut off
  11. Assembly:
  12. Take a cooled cupcake and, using a small knife, cut a cone of cake (1-inch across by 1-inch deep) out of the top.
  13. Trim off the pointy end of the cone, leaving a flat circle of cake. Set aside and repeat this process for all the cupcakes.
  14. Take the cream filling and squeeze a tablespoon or so into each cupcake cavity, filling the hole up to the top with filling.
  15. Top off with a flat circle of cake to plug the hole and keep the filling in place.
  16. Pipe out the Chocolate frosting to cover the top of the cupcake.
Recipe Notes

Top with some vanilla cream if you have any leftover from the filling and some sprinklers.(I topped the boy’s cupcakes with sugar coated marzipan cherries)

Note: I found it difficult to unmold the cupcakes which did not use cupcake liners, while they were still warm. I had to wait for them to completely cool and then remove them from the pan.

I used a piping bag to frost the cupcakes, I found this easier

I used only 1 cup of powdered sugar for the Chocolate frosting, instead of the recommended 2-3cups.