devils food cupcakes with cannoli cream and chocolate ganache frosting

photo courtesy of dan chiang

so for a k's bday, he specifically requested devils food cake with chocolate cannoli cream filling. since i had no round cake pans, and cupcakes are all the rage, i adapted the recipes i found to cupcake form.

devils food cake and chocolate ganache recipe from david guas. i halved the recipe and it made 11 cupcakes and more than enough ganache frosting. reduced baking time to 25 minutes to adapt to cupcake form, which seemed right. the cake turned out an extremely tender crumb, was just sweet enough, and the ganache frosting was out of this world!

cannoli cream filling recipe from giada. i just omitted the fruit part. had no whipping cream, so i used milk, which i think was the reason the filling wasnt fluffy or smooth enough. it still had the grainy quality from the ricotta, and was slightly runny so i had to firm it up in the fridge before stuffing the cupcake. i also threw in some mini chocolate chips into the final cream mixture.

to fill the cupcakes, i waited for them to cool, used a small sharp knife to cut a conical section out of each cupcake top, spooned in some cream filling and replaced the cut out piece of cake. then i frosted. the ganache set up nicely, but i recommend putting it in the fridge for at least an hour before frosting just so its easier to spread.