Boston Cream Cupcakes

Going with the theme of "Boston" food for Leslie's goodbye party, I made cupcake versions of a Boston cream pie. Most people are probably more familiar with Dunkin' Donuts' Boston Kreme donut and they're pretty similar: a sponge cake (or donut) filled with vanilla custard and topped with a chocolate glaze. Martha Stewart featured a really nice looking Boston cream cupcake in her March issue of Living, but it was a little too authentic to be party-friendly. She actually bakes the cupcakes without a liner, cuts them in half, and sandwiches the vanilla custard in between the layers. I figured it'd be a lot easier to eat a cupcake that had the custard piped into it then to try to deal with a cupcake/custard "sandwich" so I used this recipe to make the cupcakes.

Boston Cream Cupcakes (based on this recipe)
makes 48 cupcakes

2 boxes of butter yellow cake mix
1 (3 oz.) box French vanilla instant pudding
1 cup half & half
1 3/4 cups heavy cream, divided
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 (11.5 oz.) bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
24 maraschino cherries

Prepare yellow cupcakes as directed and allow to cool completely.

In the meantime, prepare the vanilla custard filling by combining the instant pudding with the half & half in a medium bowl.

Whip 1 cup of heavy cream, vanilla, and powdered sugar on medium speed until you get soft peaks. Gently fold in pudding mixture into the whipped cream until fully incorporated.

Place filling into a piping bag or makeshift Ziploc bag, fitted with a coupler and a #21 tip.

When cupcakes have cooled, place tip inside the center of each cupcake and pipe in filling, being careful not to overfill.

Melt the chocolate chips in the remaining 3/4 cups heavy cream over a double boiler (or a bowl fitted on top of a pot of boiling water). Stir until completely melted and homogeneous.

Dip only the tops of the cupcakes in the chocolate ganache. If the top of the cupcake doesn't clear the top of the cupcake liner, you'll want to spread the ganache on using a small butter knife or spatula.

Drain maraschino cherries and cut in half. While cupcakes are still slightly "wet" from the glaze, place half a cherry on top to garnish.

I made only half the amount of the vanilla custard filling for this many cupcakes but still had a ton left over afterwards as well as some extra chocolate ganache. Instead of tossing it, I tried folding them together and ended up making a chocolate mousse!

After I took this picture I actually chopped up all my extra maraschino cherries (I think I had about 8 left over) and folded them in as well. The mousse is so freaking rich that it needs the fruit (even one as artificial as a maraschino cherry) to cut the fat a little.