Chocolate Mint Filled Cupcakes with Mint Buttercream

Asked our good friends and neighbors what they liked best...Chocolate Mint or Mexican Chocolate. They said Mint. I said Okay. We were meeting them for dinner and I was making dessert.

Tried a new recipe on a whim...still trying to figure out my perfect 'go to' chocolate cake.

I used the recipe from the Sweet Melissa Book for the Devil's Food Chocolate Cake, which was oil based instead of butter. I have not made anything without butter for the cake yet, but I really didn't love the oil in the cake. Or maybe I used the wrong oil. Gotta do a little bit of research on the oil thing.



The cake also was a little puffalicious in the oven, so next time gotta remember for this recipe or similar to it, I will only fill the cups 1/2 way rather than 2/3. Some of them got a little wild with overflow. However the cake itself came out amazingly soft with a perfect texture.



For the ganache filling and frosting I used the recipes from Chockylit's Cupcake Bakeshop, though I adapted the ganache filling and added some Andes mints candies into the melting chocolate to get more of a mint flavor in the ganache considering I didn't have fresh mint to steep in the cream. Both turned out fabulous.

Overall, the ganache and frosting are a win win...the best mint buttercream I have made thus far for frosting and the ganache was amazingly yummy with the Andes mints in it.



The cake, I will probably make again but with butter replacing the oil. I also modified the Sweet Melissa recipe to use buttermilk rather than sour cream which gives that super soft texture I really love in a cupcake. Funny...my friend who tried them pronounced it the best mint cupcake and frosting thus far and loved the texture of the cake. She didn't taste the 'oil' like I seemed to.

Why am I so critical of my stuff?? It's never QUITE right! Always could be better. Anyone else ever have that issue??