Devil's Food Cupcakes with Ganache

It has been too long since I have had a chance to bake or blog. My kids have been sick and sucking up every bit of my time. Luckily, they are feeling better.

I went to an event last night with my pastries and new business cards. Thanks so much to Whitney for my beautiful business cards. I really, really love them. And so does everyone who sees them :) I made a few items to be displayed along with my business cards. I made mini chocolate chip cookies, my dark chocolate brownies, and mini devil's food cupcakes with dark chocolate ganache. They were all quite yummy!

Mini cupcakes are such a great treat. And they are super quick and easy. I don't even use a mini cupcake pan. I just buy the foil cups and place them right on a baking sheet. I can get 40 into the

oven at the same time. Here's a great tip to know whether your cupcakes are done: touch them. If you leave a fingerprint, they are not done. If the cake springs back when you touch it, they are done! I made a very simple bittersweet chocolate ganache for the top of them. Ganache is such an easy icing to make. It is simply heavy cream and chocolate. Some recipes have additional ingredients like corn syrup or extracts. The only thing with ganache is that you have to have a little bit of extra time to let it set up. After it is made, it has to be chilled until it is the right consistency to spread on a cupcake. But I promise you, it is definitely worth it :)

In the first half of the 19th century, "chocolate" cake was either yellow or spice and meant to accompany a chocolate beverage. Cakes with chocolate in them became rather common in the second half of the 19th century and were very similar to devil's food. The first recipe for devil's food cake appeared in 1900. After that, there was a recipe or reference to the cake in almost every cookbook. The cake was named "devil's food" because it is so rich and delicious that it must be somewhat sinful.