Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Swiss Meringue Butter Cream Frosting

This spring, Ian has an amazing internship working at a prestigious accounting firm...and it has the potential to lead to a full time job when he graduates.  It's a tax internship during the busy tax time, and so far he is loving it.  He is loving it so much, in fact, that he decided he wants to bribe them into giving him a job...or into liking him...which he hopes will lead to a job.

By "bribe" I mean give them delicious cupcakes.

We mutually decided that booze-free was the way to go with cupcakes for Ian's workplace (well, Ian decided and I agreed).  We know lawyers love the booze in the cupcakes (and elsewhere), but not so sure about accountants.  Better to play it safe.

So, we wanted a safe cupcake that everyone was guaranteed to like (or, we hoped everyone was guaranteed to like).  We opted for chocolate cupcakes with the always delicious strawberry swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  I didn't want just any old chocolate cupcake, so I did some research and found this recipe for the ultimate chocolate cupcakes.  It is a chocolate cupcake with ganache filling....yum.  I used the cupcake recipe, but stuck with my own ganache and frosting. 

One fun part about this cupcake is that it's filled, but you put the filling on top of the batter and the cupcake bakes around the filling! Seriously, it's like magic! This is a really, really terrible picture, but I love that you can see the batter and filling!  I did have one sad little incident with the filling...I dropped a still extremely hot cupcake on my leg and it exploded hot filling all over me.  Luckily, I was wearing pants and there was no burn!

This cupcake was a huge hit!  Ian's coworkers had many nice things to say about the cupcakes...but my favorite was a comment overheard near Ian's office where one female associate told another that eating my cupcake had totally undone her workout that morning, but was totally worth it!  Also, one of the partners asked Ian how she could order cupcakes for her card club!  I call that a success!

We plan to "bribe" Ian's coworkers again, sometime near the end of the internship (close to when they make their hiring decisions).  Maybe he will let me make a mildly boozy one next time...

Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes - (makes approximately 12 cupcakes)

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine

1/3 cup  Dutch-processed cocoa

3/4 cup hot coffee

3/4 cup  bread flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place chocolate and cocoa in medium bowl. Pour hot coffee over mixture and whisk until smooth. Set in refrigerator to cool completely, about 20 minutes.
3. Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.
4. Whisk oil, eggs, vinegar, and vanilla into cooled chocolate-cocoa mixture until smooth. Add flour mixture and whisk until smooth.
5. Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups.
6. Place one slightly rounded teaspoon ganache filling on top of each cup of batter (I probably used closer to a tablespoon, and it was perfectly fine).
7. Bake until cupcakes are set and just firm to touch, 17 to 19 minutes.
8. Cool cupcakes in pan for about 5 minutes, and then remove them and place on a wire rack to finish cooling.
9. Frost when completely cool (I HIGHLY recommend the Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream with this one!).

Ganache -

1 cup heavy whipping cream

12 ounces milk chocolate, semisweet chocolate, or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1. In a medium saucepan, bring whipping cream just to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly making sure not to scorch.
2. Remove from heat.
3. Add chocolate and do not stir.
4. Let stand for five minutes.
5. Stir until smooth.