Rocky Road Cupcakes!

These chocolate cupcakes are filled with creamy marshmallow and topped with a rich ganache frosting, marshmallows and almonds! YUM!!!!!

These are fork-eating cupcakes!  You’ll love that combination of rocky road flavors in these rich and messy-to-eat cupcakes.

I absolutely love this frosting.  I have used ganache for many recipes, but I’d never taken the time to whip it up into a frosting.  Now that I’ve tried it, I will be back for more- this frosting is so rich and chocolatey!!! Ready for a recipe?

Here you go: (printable version)

INGREDIENTS:

• One box of chocolate cake mix (with oil, water and eggs to make according to package)
• One large jar (13 oz) of Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme
• One bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips *
• 1/2 cup of whipping cream *

(*double these two ingredients if you want to pile your frosting high like mine is)

• One bag of mini-marshmallows
• 1 cup of slivered or sliced almonds
• a little white chocolate to drizzle on top, if desired

DIRECTIONS:

• Start your frosting first, as it needs to chill before you beat it, and double the recipe if you want piles of frosting like mine.  I went a little overboard for fun pictures!! 🙂
• Place 1/2 cup of whipping cream into a medium saucepan and heat it on the stove until the cream starts to bubble just a bit on the edges, stirring as it heats.  Turn off the heat, add the chocolate chips and cover for 5 minutes.
• Stir melted chocolate and warm cream together until completely smooth (a “ganache”).  Put it in a medium bowl and refrigerate until it is a cool, spoonable consistency (30 minutes to an hour).
• Make cake mix according to box, and divide equally into 24 cupcake lines placed in a muffin tin.
• Bake as directed on box, and cool completely.
• Core cupcakes using a small knife, or a cupcake corer.  I used the Chicago Metallics one, and for $4 there is just no reason to not get one- it makes filling cupcakes SOOOO easy!  Isn’t your birthday coming up???

• Spoon entire jar of marshmallow fluff into a gallon-size zip-top bag and clip a corner off with scissors.  Squeeze the marshmallow into the middle of each cupcake and then trim a little of the core you removed and place the “lid” back on top of the filling.
• Remove cooled chocolate ganache from refrigerator and beat on high until light and fluffy.
• Place icing in a gallon size zip-top bag that has been fitted with a decorating tip in one corner, and pipe icing onto the cupcakes.
• Decorate with almonds, and mini marshmallows.  I also added some mini chocolate chips (because I had some leftovers from another recipe) and I melted some white chocolate to drizzle on top.  Be creative and make these little marshmallow-y cupcakes irresistible!!!!

My thoughts:  These are FABULOUS cupcakes.  I love the gooey marshmallow creme surprise in the middle!  And that frosting….. oh my.  A few tips:  the frosting does harden up, so get those almonds and marshmallows placed in it as soon as you are done piping the frosting on.  This is good, because it holds all those yummy toppings in place!  Also, store these all sealed up.  You know what happens when you leave the bag of marshmallows open?  Yucky, rubbery, dried up marshmallows!  The same will happen if you just let these set out. 

I hope you love these little yummy desserts!!!!  ~r

Want some other ideas for that new cupcake corer?  We love filled cupcakes here at Easybaked!  Here’s a few of our favorites: