Leave the Gun, Take the Cupcakes

What could possibly be better than a freshly baked, thickly frosted cupcake?  How about a freshly baked, thickly frosted cupcake stuffed with a cannoli cream filling?  That, my friends, is exactly what I enjoyed for my afternoon treat at the office today:)

My entire workplace has only 7 employees on staff, and as the Administrative Assistant, I've become the de facto "Social Chair."  I keep track of everyone's birthdays, and I arrange for the cake/treat to celebrate at our monthly staff meetings.  For April, we had two birthdays to celebrate, so I thought it was the perfect excuse to try this slightly-fancier cupcake recipe I've had on my mind.  

I'm SO far from a professional baker, it's not even funny...  I typically shy away from any recipe that has more than, say, 5 ingredients, and I almost never make anything from scratch.  This recipe was a great find, because it starts with cupcakes made from a box mix, then the filling mixes up in no time.  I baked just 12 cupcakes (and put the rest of the batter in a mini-cake pan for my boys to get a little treat, too), because that's all the filling recipe was for, and I have a small group to feed.  Just a side note, these were the most perfect cupcakes I've ever baked!  All smooth & rounded, not a single overflow... I was so pleased with myself, lol!

The filling is what makes these cannoli flavored, and boy, it does the job well!  So creamy and delicious, with the mini chocolate chips mixed right in, it would make a fantastic dip with sweet pita chips or graham crackers!  But that's a separate dessert... I mixed 15 oz ricotta cheese, 8 oz mascarpone, 1 cup powdered sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla together until well combined.  Then I folded in a cup of mini chocolate chips.  I actually added more powdered sugar at the end, too, because the consistency was too runny for my liking.  It's super important to let the cupcakes cool completely before moving on to the next step, so I stuck the filling in the fridge to let it thicken a bit.

When everything was cooled & ready to use, I got to do the fun part - cut a circle in the center of each cupcake & push it down, creating a hole.  Pipe the filling into the cupcake (I used a gallon ziploc with the corner snipped off) and over the top of the cupcake.  Ideally, you would swirl it around to make a high tower of cream, but for traveling purposes, I stuck with a flat layer.  After all 12 are filled, they go in the freezer for at least an hour, so the filling can firm up enough to be dipped.

Dipping the cupcakes was a bit nerve wrecking.  I was sure they'd fall apart when I tipped them, but the freezing really worked!  I melted 2 cups of dark chocolate chips with 3 tbsp of coconut oil, for a home made "magic shell" that gives the perfect crunch when you bite into the cupcake (use it on ice cream sundaes, fruit, anything...), and carefully dipped each cupcake.  It was late, and I had a migraine, so they didn't come out perfectly, but they did look delicious and charmingly homemade ;)

lost that 12th one in an unfortunate clumsy moment...

RIP, sweet friend

I was a bit disappointed that they didn't look exactly how I envisioned.  But my coworkers were impressed & appreciative, so that's a win in my book!  And how did they taste?  Mmmmmm...