Chocolate Mini Cakes

Chocolate Mini Cakes

Jill and I were asked to cater a mother and daughter event recently for 150 ladies. They wanted to recognize these girls for their achievements in the LDS personal progress program and wanted to create a tea party type atmosphere complete with a tea party type dessert. We took the challenge and decided that it had to be chocolate and it had to be PINK! What we came up with were some chocolate mini cakes decorated with a pink frosting flower and pearl center on top, a strawberry in a dollop of Ready whip, colored chocolate mint candies sprinkled around the plate, and pink lemonade to drink. Of course we forgot to take a picture (yes, we are not the brightest of the bunch when it comes to remembering to take pictures...it could also have to do with the fact that my picture taking devices are either my cell phone or my camera that is held together with duct tape!) Anyway, here are the chocolate mini cakes that we served. Not too hard to make even though it takes a few recipes combined to make each part of the cake just right, (you will recognize each of the recipes as ones we have used before!) but go and make someone feel special by making these cutest little cakes today! You can even make them the day before your event and keep them in the fridge! ENJOY!

Chocolate Mini Cakes
Otherwise known as upside down cupcakes using our favorite chocolate bundt cake recipe!

1 devils food cake mix, Duncan Hines is favorite (do not make according to package)
1 (4 serving) instant chocolate pudding mix
4 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
½ cup warm water
½ cup vegetable oil
Place all ingredients except chocolate chips in a large mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer for 1 minute. Scrape down sides and continue to mix on medium speed for 2-3 minutes. Generously grease and sprinkle cocoa to coat 24-30 dark non-stick muffin tin cups. (My favorite is to actually use the cooking spray that has flour in it, expensive but worth it!) Spoon batter into the muffin tins filling only about 1/2 or so full. Bake at 350 for 13-14 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached but not wet batter. Let cool in the pan for about 10 mins and then using a knife, carefully remove the mini cakes and invert "bottoms up" on a cooling rack to finish cooling. Cool completely before filing, but if not using immediately, they need to be put on parchment paper in an air tight container as soon as they are cool so they won't dry out.

Filling:
Otherwise known as Perfect Cupcake Frosting and Filling

6 TB flour
1 cup milk
1 cup real butter (MUST be good quality butter!)
1 cup sugar (granulated, not powdered sugar)
2 tsps vanilla extract
In a small saucepan, whisk together the flour and milk. Heat on medium heat whisking continuously until it starts to thicken. Stir and cook until you barely start to see streaks of the bottom of the pan (it should still be mostly liquid though) and quickly get off the heat still stirring. Put a mesh strainer over a bowl and pour the mixture into the strainer and stir with a rubber spatula to push it through, cleaning off the bottom of the strainer when you're finished. You should end up with a nice, smooth mixture. Put mixture in fridge and let it cool completely. In an electric mixer, beat the butter and the sugar a couple of minutes until fluffy. Use the whisk attachment on an electric stand mixer. Then while beating, pour in the cooled milk mixture, then the vanilla. Beat to combine and then scrape down bowl. It will look goopy and lumpy at this point! Just wait...beat on medium high for 7-8 minutes, longer if needed. After 7-8 mins. it will have transformed into a gorgeous and fluffy, light and silky frosting or filling!

Use a long (Wilton Bismarck) tip and put tip 3/4 of the way into the center of each cake, filling and lifting out of the cake until you can see the cake "plumping" (oooh, is that a word, if it is, I certainly hope that "plumping" is never used in a sentence to describe this girl!) and starting to come out the top hole. You can also cut out a piece of the cake and replace after filling, but the decorating tip is much faster and easier I think.

Helpful notes:*Use real butter that is a good quality, cheap brands do weird things!*If after 7-8 min. it's not fluffy, keep going and increase your mixing speed.*Store at room temperature, it may separate in the fridge, can store overnight in a well sealed container. *This recipe really isn't as hard as it sounds, just follow the hints and give it a try, you will LOVE it!


What a better way to "frost" these mini cakes than with real chocolate!...
Chocolate Ganache
3/4 C heavy cream
2 T real butter, melted
8 oz semi-sweet or dark chocolate, chopped (or use good quality chocolate chips)
Put chocolate pieces in a bowl. Pour melted butter over it. Place cream in microwave-safe bowl and microwave for about 2 minutes- it needs to be at a simmer. Immediately pour over chocolate and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for about 3 minutes and then stir until smooth. Let it cool until it's a good spreading consistency and then spread on top of filled mini cakes. Use about a tablespoon chocolate and drop in the center of each cake. Then use the back of your spoon to spread the chocolate around the top, allowing the chocolate to lovingly drip down the sides of the cake. If your chocolate in the bowl gets too thick to spread, just put it back in the microwave and reheat for about 30 seconds or so.

Decorating the mini cakes:
Make sure the you give the ganache time to cool and set before decorating or else you will have a melty mess! To decorate the cakes, we used just a regular buttercream frosting (you can even just buy that stuff in a can if you want!) and added pink (3 or so drops of red depending on how much frosting you have) food coloring to it. (Try two drops of red and 1 drop of yellow for a pretty peachish-pink color too!) Use a trusty Wilton 1M Star tip and decorating bag and hold the tip upright, just touching the center of the cake and squeeze! It will come out a beautiful flower if you just let the petals form and gently release and lift when the desired flower size is achieved.


These cakes are such a hit, they are worth the extra time and effort we promise! If you want to simplify, just use silver metal cupcake holder cups and make them into cupcakes, or just don't fill them...but we insist you use the fabulous chocolate GANACHE!