Samoa Cupcakes - Rachel

delightful remix on the Girl Scout cookie!

Ingredients

For cupcakes:

1 box of yellow cake mix

1 c water

3 eggs

1/3 c veggie oil

For chocolate ganache:

8 oz semisweet chocolate chips

1 c heavy cream

1 t vanilla

For frosting:

1/2 c butter

1 c brown sugar

1/4 c milk

2 c powdered sugar, sifted

1 t vanilla

For topping:

1 c coconut

Directions

For cupcakes:

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare cupcake batter according to box directions. Fill cupcake tray with liners, and fill each liner about 3/4 full. Bake according to box directions. Let cool completely before frosting.

For ganache:

1. Stir chocolate chips and cream in double boiler until melted. I started to melt the chips first, then stirred the cream into the partially melted chocolate.

2. Add vanilla, stir to mix. Cool to room temperature.

For frosting:

1. Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar. Cook and stir for about 2 minutes.

2. Add milk; continue stirring until boiling. Remove from heat. Cool to lukewarm.

3. Put about half of mixture in mixing bowl, add one cup of sugar and combine. Add remaining mixture and other cup of sugar and combine. Add vanilla, combine and beat on medium-high for about 4 minutes. (I added a smidge more cream at this stage as well. My frosting consistency was not fluffy at this point. I put the frosting in an airtight container and left it overnight, and it was much better the next morning when I frosted the cupcakes.)

For topping:

Pour cup of coconut onto a baking sheet and spread around evenly. Place in oven heated to 350 and bake for about 7-10 minutes. **Be sure to stir the coconut every couple minutes to avoid burning! Remove when coconut is a golden brown.

To assemble cupcakes:

1. Smooth top of cupcakes with a light layer of ganache. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes so ganache slightly hardens.

2. Using pastry bag (or cut a little hole in a Ziploc bag), pipe frosting onto cupcake.

3. Sprinkle toasted coconut on top.

4. Heat some ganache in microwave about 10 seconds. Stir to drizzling consistency and drizzle over cupcakes.

ENJOY.

Source: adapted from The Cooking of Joy - I wasn't sure about the sugar measurement for her coconut frosting, so I searched for a recipe for caramel frosting, which I found at Cooks.com.

Modification ideas:

- Joy put caramels inside her cupcakes, but said they sank to the bottom and were too hard to chew. If I had more time, I would make a caramel sauce and make a few holes in the cooked cupcakes and insert some caramel sauce. Perhaps messy, but it sounds awesome.

- I might mix more toasted coconut into the caramel frosting next time. The upside of just sprinkling it on top was that many of my students (for whom I made the cupcakes) don't like coconut, so they were able to brush it off and still enjoy. However, I love coconut and there wasn't enough for me.

Related recipe I want to try:

Homemade Samoas... yum.