Candy Corn Cupcakes for Bunco Night

My good friend and neighbor invited me to attend her Bunco Night last night. (I was a substitute.) It really was a fun night with a great group of ladies! And I had the high score for the evening. Whee! Beginner's luck, I guess.

Anyway, I asked her if I could bring dessert as I wanted to try and recreate these cute candy corn cupcakes that I found on the cool blog The Sugar Turntable.

I used a chocolate cake recipe that I like because they are so light and moist (secret ingredient in them is sour cream and of course I added additional cocoa powder!!) I had never made them as cupcakes but so far every cake that I like works as cupcakes too. And for the filling, I completely made up a recipe that was delicious! Very light and fluffy. Email me if you want it!

So I started by using only cupcake liners that mimicked the colors of a classic candy corn. Once the cupcakes were baked, it was very hard to tell unless you were really looking for it.

After I made the cupcakes, I filled two test cupcakes. I discovered that the colors were too light and also that each layer needed to "set" before the next one was added so that there would be more color definition. I added a chocolate ganache to the to top and then decide that the candy corn "popped" if another dollop of white frosting was on top of the ganache. Karen was kind enough to come over and eat one of the samples right away!

I darkened the yellow and orange fillings and started working. The cupcakes had been made the night before and chilled in the fridge as that makes them easier to work with. I cut a cone shape out of the top and then cut off the bottom of the cone (to eat later!!) I used a piping bag and put in a little white. Then I put them back in the fridge for 15 minutes to chill. Then I used a tasting spoon to put in the orange filling and back in the fridge. Then I piped in the yellow on top and put the cupcake top back on and yes, back in the fridge.

With some of the cupcakes, once the tops were back on a little bit of the yellow filling could been seen. These got more ganache on them to cover up any yellow or lines of demarcation.

After I put on the ganache (which was so hot that a DROP burned my hand), I put the cupcakes in the fridge again so the ganashe would set. Then I piped two dots of the while filling on top and inserted a candy corn. Then I put them all back into the fridge to work on the candy corn tray.

For the tray, I used a plastic tray on top of a wooden tray. (My sister gave me this wooden tray a long time ago for my birthday.) I placed four candy pumpkins at each quarter point on the rim. Then I put a dot of peanut butter on the back of each candy corn and placed them up and down around the tray. I sprinkled loose candy corn on the exposed parts of the green tray. I am going to use the trays again for another party this Saturday (with fresh candy corn on the green tray of course.)

Unfortunately, I waited until I got home after the party to cut the last one open. It had been at room temperature for several hours and the knife smeared the colors. But it still looks pretty cool.

Would I make them again? Probably not. As an old boss of mine, Angelo, used to say "the juice wasn't worth the squeeze." However, I would make the recipe again with all the filling just white. They were DELICIOUS. Like a hostess cupcake but a million times better.

I ran out of the yellow filling after 12 cupcakes so for the remaining cupcakes, I just filled them with the white filling using a long Bismark tip 230. I just smooched in filling until the cupcake was bulging and some was coming up. I then covered that up with the ganache. Lastly, I used a star tip to pipe some orange frosting. The frosting wasn't cold enough when I piped it, so it collapsed under the candy corn. These were pretty simple and still quite yummy too.

Lastly, I just had to post this picture of Karen's vintage chip and dip bowls. How cool are these? I will definitely be borrowing them for my Valley of the Dolls parties!