Eats: Cherry Chip Chocolate Cupcakes

10:30 AM

There is a decent sized list of things I should not be consuming on a daily basis, not just because I am trying to get my ass in shape, but because I have hypoglycemia. Loads of sugar is right there on the top of that list, however, I really like to bake. There are two ways of getting around this: The first being to cut the recipe down, and only bake a small portion. The second, share the food. Since I hate math, and more importantly, I hate having several little containers of things opened up with only a small amount of product used from each one, sharing it is!

For awhile, a few of my friends would meet up at Sneakers' (CLASS-Y bar in Ferndale) on Tuesdays for trivia night. We became good friends with the hostess, Ruby, and would often share our bake goods with her and the rest of the staff. Then summer came, and it was too hot to bake. Ruby mentioned that her birthday was coming up, so I decided to bake something for her. Cherry chip is her favorite flavor, so I was tweeting out loud (like you do) and my friend Neil came up with this awesome idea: Cherry chip cupcakes, with cherry sauce, and chocolate ganache.

Get

1 box cherry chip cake mix

12 oz chocolate chips (I used semisweet)

1 cup heavy cream

1 can (16 oz) tart cherries

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbs butter

2 tbs cornstarch

Bake cupcakes according to instructions on the box. Meanwhile, heat up 1 cup of heavy whipping cream in a small pot. Once it boils, remove from heat and add the chocolate chips, stirring until it all melts together. This will make more of a glaze ganache, so I stuck mine in the fridge to cool off a bit. Next, drain the juice from the cherry sauce, and heat in a pan with the corn starch, vanilla, and butter. Remove from heat and let it cool a little. When the cupcakes are done, gently spoon the sauce onto each one. Next, do the same for the ganache. This ended up looking really messy, so as soon as I was done taking pics (the messy ones you see here), I put them in the fridge to cool off for a bit.

These ended up being a very big hit! There were only a few leftover, and Ruby took them home. Obviously there was a whole jar of cherries left over, and I had left over sauce and ganache. SO, I bought another box of the cake mix, blended the cherries and the left over sauce in the blender, and topped the cake with the sauce and ganache and it was really good!