Coca-Cola Cupcakes with Coke Ganache Frosting

There aren't a lot of traditionally Southern food that I'm just crazy over. I grew up around the stuff and I still don't have any affinity for gravy, grits or fried chicken.

I do, however, have a sweet tooth that occasionally craves Southern desserts. Southerners are all about incorporating soda in their cakes, and the moment I heard about Coca-Cola Cake, I knew it would be the perfect first project to attempt with my new KitchenAid mixer.

There are plenty of variations on the recipe but I went this route. That recipe worked well for me.

First, you bring a concoction of Coca-Cola, butter, vegetable oil and cocoa powder to a boil. Remove from heat and add 2-3 handfuls of mini marshmallows.

Stir well until the marshmallows melt.

Melting sloooooooowly.

Meanwhile, I put my flour/sugar/baking powder mix into the bowl of my KitchenAid and slowly added 2 beat eggs and vanilla to the mix.

When the batter looked ready, I added the Coke/Chocolate goop and mixed somewhat well. I should have mixed very well, but I encountered my first KitchenAid disaster. I have a bad habit of not reading the directions to new appliances, so I just plugged the bad boy in and got started. Only later did I realize I was supposed to use the flat beater, not the wire whisk, to mix the batter, so I ended up with a thin batter.

It worked out okay, but it was a little scary there for a bit, and the batter didn't mix quite as well as I would have liked.

I used my very special red-stripe cupcake liners! I popped the cupcakes into the oven, which was preheated to 325, I think, and baked for a little over 20 minutes.

The coke cakes ready for icing.

So, I'm going to present you with two different icing options. The first, a chocolate-coke ganache, I will show you today. The second, a Jack Daniels buttercream, I'll show you tomorrow.

To make the ganache, I started with almost the same process as the cupcakes: Coke + butter + cocoa powder, brought to a boil.

But this time, I added confectioner's sugar instead of marshmallows.

The bad news is that my confectioner's sugar was all lumpy. It was the bottom of the bag and me being stubborn, I just plowed ahead even though the sugar looked lumpy. I don't own a sifter, so I hoped it would work out okay.

It didn't. My poor cupcakes had little lumps of sugar in the icing that looks not like sugar, but tapioca. Blech. The good thing is that they tasted great...the coke flavor takes a little getting-used-to, but it's interesting. The ganache icing is good, but very rich, and a bit too much chocolate for me.

So with that in mind, I set out to try another icing. Tomorrow, I present Jack and Coke cupcakes!