Photograph courtesy of Mr. M (As he awaited the arrival of the maintenance man to fix our water heater he took this for me. I probably shouldn’t mention how serious he took my phone request about taking a picture. He even picked our pansies from the front and drug out the brown sugar just to bring this photo to you!)

This cupcake is brought to you by the rather large tattoo on my left leg – a Christmas gift to me from Ms. C. After weeks of hiding said tattoo from work, I decided to wear (dun dun dunnnnnn) capri pants. You see, my boss’ absolute favorite desert is Boston Cream Pie. So, my thinking process was – if she gets upset about yet another tattoo, I can diffuse the situation with….cupcakes! But not just any ol’ cupcake. Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes. It was worth every second of time spent making them. And get this – she never even noticed the daggone tattoo!

So, there are a lot of steps, but I believe it is absolutely worth it. They’re very easy steps, but there are a lot of them. It’s also very kid friendly, so if you have them, put them to work!  Save it for a rainy day….or the Monday after a new tattoo.

**Cooks note: If you must use a boxed Vanilla cupcake mix, I can forgive you. Only if you promise to try them from scratch next time. THERE WILL BE A NEXT TIME. I mean, I do use Jello pudding mix in here, so I can’t judge**

This makes 12 cupcakes and can be easily doubled. Original recipe and other fun things found here.

Vanilla Cupcakes

3/4 stick (which is 6 tablespoons) of unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups of sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 1/4 cups of flour
1/2 + 1/8 cups milk (yeah, that’s right, I don’t know what 0.625 equals out to in fractions. what about it?!)

For the chocolate topping:

10 oz of bittersweet chocolate (I used a 11oz bag of Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips and left a little bit in the bag. Thus equaling 10 oz  in my head. I’m very scientific.)
1 cup of heavy cream

For your custardy insides:

1 box of french vanilla pudding mix (It took me a few scans of the shelves to find the ‘french’ vanilla)
1 cup whole milk (I’m a skim fan, but sorry folks, you can’t here)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your ovens to 350,  y’all. Get your cup cake pan ready to go with the liners of your choice.

To make the cupcakes, beat the butter and sugar together until nice and creamy. Add the remaining ingredients and beat well. Fill your liners 2/3 full. Bake 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the top of one comes out clean. Allow to cool.

To make your topping, place your chocolate in a heat safe bowl to relax and  hang out.  Heat the cream in a saucepan until it comes to a boil. Dump the hot cream on top of the chocolate and walk away. Let it sit for 2 minutes then stir until the mixture is shiny and completely combined. Let chill in the refrigerator until it is able to hold it’s form. When it gets to this point, you can put it in a pastry bag and pipe.

For your custard, mix all the ingredients together until the pudding starts to thicken up. It will get thick!

To fill your cupcakes (I’m sure there are many proper ways to do this) use a small spoon to dig your innards out, making a little nest for the custard. Be careful not to dig all the way to the bottom of the cupcake. *If you do, top with the custard and chocolate ganache as a practice bite* Once all of your little guys and gals are hollowed, spoon the custard in.

Top each cuppycake with your ganache. Allow to chill for a little bit to re-set the chocolate.

Tell me what noise you made when you bit into them for the first time.