On the Eleventh day of Christmas, my True Love baked for me…
Candy Cane Truffle Cupcakes!
These babies are so dinky and just the right size to not completely ruin you after all the other Christmas treats you’ve ingested during Christmas Dinner.
I have a thing for candy canes, and last year I brought you Candy Cane Cupcakes, with their luscious, candy-striped, ice-cream-like white chocolate peppermint frosting. This year, a different twist: a spongy flourless chocolate mini cupcake, topped with a bourbon chocolate truffle rolled in crushed candy canes.
The idea came from these self-hot-chocolate truffles I’d seen, where basically you have a heavy ganache ball rolled in mini marshmallows or crushed candy cane – you would drop these into hot milk and (at least theoretically) hot chocolate would ensue. But I thought it was cheating to just tell you about those. I’m also cognisant of how many “hot chocolate” type cakes that I’ve done in the past year or so. There must be more to life than hot chocolate, right? Maybe not.
On the other hand, you could still just drop a Bourbon Candy Cane Truffle or three into your hot milk.
Candy Cane Truffle Cupcakes
makes 20 mini cupcakes
Flourless Chocolate Sponge Cakes
ingredients
50g dark chocolate
50g butter
1 egg
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp ground almonds
mixing
Line a 24 hole mini-muffin pan with 20 cupcake cases, spray with non-stick spray.
Melt the chocolate and butter together (about 50 seconds in the microwave). Beat the egg and sugar together until very pale and foamy. Stir the ground almonds into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the egg mixture.
Spoon into the prepared cupcake cases. Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for about 10 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
Bourbon Candy Cane Truffles
makes 20 small truffles. If just you want to hot-chocolate it, double their size and omit the egg yolk.
ingredients
50mL cream
35g unsalted butter, chopped
130g dark chocolate, chopped
1 egg yolk
1 tsp bourbon
150g red and white striped peppermint candy canes (still in their wrappers)
50g chocolate, chopped, for ganache
30mL cream, for ganache
mixing
Place the cream and butter in a small saucepan and heat, stirring until the butter is melted and the cream starts to bubble at the edges of the pan. Remove from the heat, add the chopped chocolate, cover and let sit for about 10 minutes until the chocolate has melted.
Stir until smooth, then stir in the egg yolk and bourbon.
Chill the mixture (to speed things up you can use the freezer) until firm but still pliable.
Crush the candy canes by whacking them, still in their wrappers, several times along their length with a rolling pin. Having the wrappers on saves having ricocheted pieces of peppermint candy all over your kitchen (there is apparently quite a lot of elastic potential energy in a candy cane). Holding each candy cane over a bowl, peel off the wrappers, allowing the crushed candy to drop into the bowl. This is a bit of a sticky process so make sure your hands are as dry as possible (or do what I didn’t and use disposable gloves!).
Using two teaspoons, and scraping the mixture from one spoon to the other, shape a small ball of the mixture (about 1.5-2 cm in diameter). Drop the shaped ball into the crushed candy canes and toss to coat.
Chill until firm on a tray lined with baking paper.
While the truffles are chilling, make the ganache. Heat the chocolate and cream together gently (starting with 30 seconds in the microwave), stirring until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Chill until thick.
Place a teaspoonful of ganache on each cupcake and top with a Bourbon Candy Cane Truffle.
The cupcakes will keep for a couple of days, but the candy canes will get softer during this time, so if you want them crunchy, serve within a day of making!
Enjoy!xxx
