Chocolate Penuche Cupcakes

I found a recipe from Betty Crocker for cupcakes with a penuche filling (in case you are curious penuche is pronounced "panucci" and is a fudge-like candy made from caramelizing brown sugar). I basically followed the Betty Crocker directions, but I used a different cupcake mix. You can use whatever chocolate cupcake mix you want, just make sure to add a teaspoon of vanilla. 

Place cupcake liners in the pan before you start mixing the batter. It is important to place the batter in the pan and bake it as quickly as possible after beating and this removes an extra step. I always spray the cupcake liners with cooking spray so the cupcakes remain intact when you remove the liners. 

Getting the batter from the mixing bowl to the liners is the worst part, I think. I hate the mess. Using a 1/4 measuring cup helps. I need to invest in a cupcake batter dispenser. Bake cupcakes as directed.

While the cupcakes are baking, start on the penuche frosting. First, melt a cup of butter (two sticks) over medium heat. Measure out two cups of packed brown sugar. 

Add the 2 cups of brown sugar to the melted butter and stir. Continue stirring constantly until the butter/brown sugar mixture starts to boil.

Reduce heat to low and let the butter/brown sugar mixture boil for two minutes while you stir. The process looks like this:

Stir in 1/2 cup of milk and heat it till it boils.

Remove butter/brown sugar/milk mixture from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for about an hour or till the temperature is under 90°.

By now your batch of cupcakes should be done. Remove them from the muffin pan to cool. 

After the cupcakes cool, remove them from the liners. Next, use a serrated knife to horizontally cut the cupcakes in half.

While I was still waiting for the penuche to cool in the fridge, I attempted to grate 1 oz of baking chocolate to garnish the cupcakes with. This didn't seem to work very well, or look very pretty, so I ended up slicing the chocolate into small pieces with a knife.

Once the penuche has cooled for about an hour, remove it from the fridge. Mix in 4 cups of powdered sugar.

Now you are ready to frost. I placed a generous amount of frosting between the two layers and spread it around using a small icing knife. 

Then I put the remainder of the icing in a bag and piped it on the top and garnished the cupcake with the chocolate pieces I cut up earlier. 

They turned out very tasty! Wish everyone was here to try one... yum!