Remember those convenience-store cupcakes?

These cupcakes are a nod to a certain brand of packaged cupcakes often found in convenience stores.

These cupcakes likely  have a shorter shelf life than the packaged version. But they were consumed rapidly enough that shelf life really wasn’t much of an issue.

I used the same moist, dense, and choclate-y chocolate cake batter recipe that I used for this cake and these other cupcakes. For the icing filling and top-of-cupcake decoration, I used the icing recipe that I used for this cake.

I baked the cupcakes the day before filling and decorating them. Cake tends to be crumbly when it’s super-fresh – or not fully cooled – and I wanted to be able to make holes in the centres of the cupcakes without destroying the cupcakes

Holes in the centres of the cupcakes – each of which was filled with about a tablespoon of icing – were made with this lovely cupcake-corer device:

Here’s another view of the corer beside a just-filled-with-icing cupcake:

The pieces of cupcake that were cored out were squished back into place on top of the filling.

Then, each cupcake was covered with a few spoonfuls of chocolate ganache.

For the chocolate ganache topping, I used a modified version of a recipe from a cupcake recipe book I have. I used:

-1 1/4 cup soy milk – you could substitute another milk-like beverage if you’d like

-1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips

-2 tablespoons brown sugar

Mix the milk beverage and the brown sugar together in a pot and bring to a boil. As soon as the liquid starts boiling, remove the pot from the heat source. Add the chocolate chips to the mixture immediately and stir – with a heat-safe spatula – until thoroughly blended. Let the mixture cool away from the heat source.

The ganache topping should remain relatively liquid and easy to spread for quite some time as it cools. The texture and thickness will likely be somewhat pudding-like. It should eventually cool and solidify to a, well, chocolate ganache-like state that is more solid.

Once the cupcakes had been topped with ganache – and the ganache had slightly cooled – I loaded up my icing gun with the same icing that used for the cupcake filling. I used a small, round opening, icing tip to make a loop-y line across the top of each cupcake.

And that’s that.