Chocolate Covered Cherry Cupcakes

Why do I dream in cupcakes?  I find myself daydreaming of new cupcake creations more now than ever - I think I'm watching too much Cupcake Wars on T.V. 

I had some leftover chocolate cake batter from a graduation cake so I decided to turn my leftovers into Chocolate Covered Cherry Cupcakes.  A chocolate cupcake topped with chocolate ganache, cherry cream cheese frosting and a chocolate dipped cherry on top.  (Ooooo baby!)

This is my batch of chocolate cupcakes. 

While the cupcakes cooled, I prepared my cherries for dipping by draining and drying them.

To create my garnish - I dipped my cherries in melted semi sweet chocolate.  

While the cherries chilled in the refrigerator, I made the ganache. It also cooled in the refrigerator for about an hour. 






The tricky part about the ganache is getting it to the right temperature so that it's the proper consistency.   Too warm and it will be too runny and run right off of the cupcake.  Too cool and it will be too thick to spread on the cupcake. 

 

I put my ganache topped cupcakes in the refrigerator to "set" for a few minutes while I made the cherry cream cheese frosting.  (I used my regular cream cheese frosting recipe and added a couple Tablespoons of cherry juice from my maraschino cherry jar.)





To finish these little beauties, I piped some of the cherry cream cheese frosting on top of the ganache and topped each one with a chocolate dipped cherry. 

I wish that I would have taken a picture of my kids who were both waiting eagerly, for me to finish photographing these cupcakes so they could try one.   They looked so pitiful that I let them each have a cupcake before their dinner. 

 

 Chocolate Covered Cherry Cupcakes - Oh yea.

Ciao!