Coffee and Walnut Cupcakes with White Chocolate Ganache

Coffee and Walnut Cupcakes with White Chocolate Ganache
Home Cooking



On Monday, our clinic organized a Cupcake Day to raise money for the RSPCA. I was at a loss as to what type to bake when Mochi suggested coffee and walnut. Ignoring the host of baking/cupcake cookbooks I have, I found it easier to just Google 'coffee and walnut cupcakes'. This is the recipe I followed. Apparently 12 cupcakes are supposed to result but I only managed 8. Maybe my cupcake paper holders are huge.

Rather than using the mascarpone frosting, I made a white chocolate ganache. This was partly because I was baking them the night before and thought that mascarpone might go manky. The other reason was I simply didn't have mascarpone at home but I had plenty of white chocolate.

In a frenzy of inspiration, I also made an impromptu wanut praline to use as decoration.


Coffee and Walnut Cupcakes
Makes 8

Ingredients:

• 100g butter , well softened
• 100g light muscovado sugar
• 100g self-raising flour
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp instant coffee, mixed with 100ml boiling water, then cooled
• 25g walnut halves, chopped

For the ganache

• 200g white chocolate
• 100ml cream (I used Philadelphia Cooking Cream)
• 1 tbsp butter

For the walnut praline

• 1/2 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup walnuts

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line 8 cupcake holes with cupcake cases.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, 3 tsp of the coffee mixture and the flour.3. Stir in the walnuts.
4. Spoon the batter into the cupcake cases. Add a full tablespoon to each case and then divide any remaining batter up through all the cases.5. Bake for 18-20min until cooked (they should feel light and springy).
6. Cool the cupcakes for a few minutes in the tin, then remove from the tin and then leave in the wrappers until cooled completely.7. For the ganache, melt the white chocolate and cream over low heat. Usually it's recommended that this is done in a water bath but I tend to just use a non-stick saucepan, low heat and stir heaps so that nothing burns.8. Once the chocolate has mixed evenly, cool it to room temperature and then in the fridge. Whip the ganache with a beater before spreading on the cooled cupcakes.9. For the walnut praline, create a dry caramel by heating the sugar in a non-stick pan until it starts to melt and turn golden.
10. Line the walnuts on some baking paper and pour the caramel over the top. Wait until it cools before breaking into little pieces.11. Use the walnut praline as decoration on the cupcakes.


I haven't had much luck with cupcakes in the past. They're not supposed to be difficult but I've followed recipes exactly and still ended up with mutant creations. That was years ago and I haven't reattempted until this batch.

I'm not sure what was different this time because the recipe was so easy (basically, beat everything together and bake) but they turned out great.

I had lots of fun decorating them and they were very tasty too. The Philadelphia Cooking Cream I used in the ganache was good because the tanginess cuts the sweetness. You could do the same by using a bit of cream cheese or sour cream in the ganache.