Boston Cream Cupcakes

My husband is a huge fan of the Boston Cream Donut.  So much so that there are some little jokes about it at work and he has on occasion been sent into the office with the promise of said donut only to be laughed at a little when he finds out there are no Boston Creams available.  I often send treats into work with Bobby (typically because I like to make treats, play with new things and try new things out and we can't eat them all for obvious reasons), so I thought it would be fun to send a "Boston Cream" something into work with him, I have been playing with cupcakes a little lately and I came up with these tonight.  It's my own recipe, but it is a mash-up of things I have gotten from cookbooks (the cupcake itself is a mix up of the Death By Chocolate recipe in 101 Things To Do With a Cake Mix) and around the internet (the frosting is a change up of the recipe I got here).

Interested in making them yourself?  Here you go:

Boston Cream Cupcakes:


Cake:
1 box yellow cake mix
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
3/4 cup plain greek yogurt (or sour cream)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
4 eggs


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Ready 24 cupcake liners in cupcake pans.  Mix cake mix and dry pudding mix together in a bowl.  Add remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Fill cupcake liners 1/2 - 2/3 full (this should make exactly 24 cupcakes).  Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees or JUST until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean or with just a very few crumbs sticking to it.  Leave cupcakes to cool.


Filling: 
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
2 cups cold milk


Make pudding as directed on package with 2 cups milk.  Let pudding set up 5-10 minutes in the fridge.


Fill a pastry bag with a #10 tip (large round tip) attached with the set pudding.  Place tip into the top of cooled cupcake and pipe about 1 tablespoon of filling into each cupcake (you won't use all the pudding probably).  This part just takes a little practice and patience.  Make sure you get the tip well into the cupcake (about 3/4 of the way in for sure) and pipe slowly.  They won't all have exactly the same amount of filling, NO ONE WILL CARE, so don't stress it.


Frosting (this is where it is at with this recipe, this frosting is ridiculous!):
8 oz dark chocolate (you can use semi-sweet chocolate chips here)
4 oz cream cheese (that's half a regular package)
1 cup heavy cream
1 small box instant chocolate pudding
1 8 oz tub of Cool Whip (just use the Cool Whip and don't ask questions, okay?)


Place 8 oz of chopped chocolate or chips into a glass or metal mixing bowl with 4 oz of cream cheese broken up with your hands (I use the mixing bowl for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer).  Put 1 cup of cream into a pan and set on the stove over medium low heat and place mixing bowl with chocolate and cream cheese over it (you are creating kind of a double boiler).  You want your chocolate and cream cheese to start to melt, BUT you don't want to scorch your cream so watch them both closely.  When the cream starts to boil pour it over your chocolate and cream cheese mixture (it won't be fully melted, but make sure you cover it) and let it set to cool for 20-30 minutes.  When that time has passed add in your pudding mix and mix for two minutes with either the whisk attachment on your stand mixer or a hand mixer.  Now mix in 1/2 of the tub of Cool Whip then fold the other 1/2 of the Cool Whip in until the frosting is uniform.  Using your favorite tip pipe the frosting onto the top of the cupcakes (I like a giant tip like the 4B star tip I used for these today) and ENJOY!


Bobby and I have both tried them and they are pretty excellent...hopefully they get good reviews at his work tomorrow!