The top two requests I get for cupcakes are chocolate and Red Velvet. Curiously, Red Velvet requests usually come from women, and chocolate requests come from men. I was playing World of Warcraft when I was thinking up ideas for this weekend's cupcake, and since I play with a bunch of guys for the most part, chocolate it was.
We happened to have some Kahlua in
the pantry. It isn't something we generally keep around the house, but we had
some leftover from election night when we made "I Can See White Russians
From My House" and the clerk at the liquor store convinced my husband to
buy the holiday variety pack.
I went back
and forth a bit on whether I should dip the cupcakes in ganache or use it as a
filling, but in the end it came down to a time constraint since I stayed up way
too late last night playing Apples to Apples with some friends, so I went with
the quicker option and dipped them. They came out pretty and shiny, so I think
it was a good choice after all.
Recipe Notes:
You'll probably have extra ganache. It's delicious on ice cream or just eaten
out of the pot with a spoon, so it's not generally an issue around here. If it
is, you can probably reduce the recipe by a third. The Kahlua buttercream,
however, doesn't make enough to fully frost all the cupcakes. That was okay for
me, because I wanted to make some alcohol-free cupcakes, and because I didn't
have any butter left, but if it's an issue for you, you could probably add
another half a stick of butter and up to a cup of powdered
sugar.
