Cupcakes are versatile. They can be filled or unfilled. Frosting can be slathered on with a butter knife or piped with a tip. They can also be glazed, as with our Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes.
When you cover a cake with ganache, you often begin by pouring the glaze on top of the cake and gravity lets it drip down. Sometimes we pick up the cake and rotate it to facilitate the flow of the glaze. We do this because every time you use an icing spatula with ganache, you run the risk of leaving marks – and usually the idea is to have a shiny, glossy mark-free glaze.
With cupcakes, this couldn’t be easier. In the video, I show you how to glaze a cupcake with ganache, the technique that involves dipping the cupcake upside down into the liquid. Here are some specifics:
- Fill your fluted paper-lined cupcake pans about three-quarters of the way with batter.
- Have your cupcakes of choice baked and cooled.
- Your ganache should be in a bowl that allows you easy access to dip a cupcake in and out.
- Have your ganache in a slightly warm liquid state, not too hot. If the ganache is too hot, it will slide off the cupcake.
- Take a cupcake in your hand, turn it upside down and dip straight down into the ganache.
- Gently press the cupcake down into the ganache until the ganache just comes up high enough to touch the fluted paper surrounding the cupcake.
- Slowly pull the cupcake back out of the ganache, then gently rotate your hand in circular motion. You are trying to create a slight centrifugal force, which will help expel any excess ganache back into the bowl.
- After any excess ganache has dripped off of the cupcake, flip the cupcake right back up and place on a rack or plate for the ganache to set.
- Cupcakes may be refrigerated briefly to hasten setting of ganache.
I have been searching the web to see if anyone of the Kitchen Aid family have discovered setting the stainless steel bowl on the stove to heat the chocolate and butter for ganache. I guess I am the lone soul. Less time and less clean-up.
You are not alone! I use that versatile stainless bowl over heat all the time, I just tend to microwave butter and chocolate or chocolate and cream more than I do them via stovetop. Sturdy tools like this are workhorses.
Thanks for your reply!