Sarah’s Heavenly Hostess Cupcakes Clone

Thank you to Gloria for submitting this delicious Hostess Cupcake Clone recipe.  She credits Sarah R. Commerford at the Holliston Reporter.

While out grocery shopping last week, I spied an issue of Cook’s Country Best Country Recipes on display at the register. So what, right? Wrong. So, so wrong. Winking at me from the cover of the magazine was a dazzling, yet nostalgic photograph of what I instantly recognized as Hostess Cupcakes. There was absolutely NO mistaking the velvety chocolate crumb, creamy white filling and…wait for it…the curlicue icing across the top of the frosted confections.

Obviously, I wasn’t in my right mind because I didn’t buy the magazine, but a week later, those Hostess-like-cupcakes were still stalking me. I could have just gone out and bought a pack of actual Hostess Cupcakes, but with all due respect to Hostess, the last few times I’ve had a Yodel, Ring-Ding, Cupcake or Twinkie, I was definitely not transported back to my childhood.

Now, I know times have changed since I was a kid and dinosaurs roamed the earth, but what I remembered as delicious little cream-filled cakes wrapped in crinkly cellophane, tasted artificial and worst of all, the consistency of the filling was simultaneously slimy and gritty. I knew then and there that I had to replicate the heavenly-kid-awesomeness that I so craved.

Chocolate Cream Cupcakes
(Makes 12 Cupcakes)

Cupcakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup boiling water
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Dutch Process)
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 Tbsp. instant espresso
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp. Madagascar vanilla

Filling:
½ cup heavy whipping cream
2 Tbsp. confectioners’ sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract

1. Make Batter Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325F. Grease and flour a 12 cup muffin tin, or use paper/foil liners. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer whisk water, cocoa, chocolate chips, and espresso until smooth. Add sugar, sour cream, oil, eggs, and vanilla and mix until combined. Whisk in flour mixture until incorporated. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out with few dry crumbs attached; 18-20 minutes. Cool cupcakes in tin 10 minutes, then turn them out onto wire rack and cool completely.

2. Prepare Filling In a chilled bowl, whip the heavy cream with the sugar and vanilla until the mixture is stiff.
3. Assemble Cupcakes Microwave chocolate and butter in small bowl, stirring occasionally, until smooth, about 30 seconds. Cool glaze to room temperature, about 10 minutes. As demonstrated in photos, cut cone from top of each cupcake and fill with 1 tablespoon filling each. Replace tops, frost with 2 teaspoons cooled glaze, and let sit 10 minutes. Using a pastry bag, pipe curlicues across glazed cupcakes.

4. Piping In a medium bowl, whisk the egg white until frothy. Stir in the cream of tartar. Gradually mix in enough of the confectioners’ sugar to make a fairly stiff, smooth icing. Fill a piping bag fitted with a small tip. Pipe a curlicue design on top of each cupcake. Refrigerate until icing has hardened.

mmmmmm get this and many other Hostess Clone Recipes at www.HostessRecipes.com