Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

Here I am on the whole Valentine's Day treats again. You can never have too many V-Day goodies though! I originally wanted to make the chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes over at I Heart Nap Time because to be honest, her cupcakes looked like heaven! I had gotten all the ingredients (well, what I thought was all of them) to make these and realized that after all the cupcakes were baked and cooling, I didn't have what was needed to make ganache. Rats!

What to do, what to do...? Improvise! Duh Jamie!

So what I did was made just a basic chocolate cupcake. Then was thinking how I could spice them up a bit and remember that my mom had given me this Mr. Foods baking with chocolate cookbook, there had to be something in there!

Doesn't he just look adorable!?

What I chose to do was make a fudge filling for my cupcakes. To do so you will need:
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, divided

And here is what you do:
1. In a large bowl, with an electric beater on medium speed, beat the cream cheese, sugar and egg until creamy.
2. Place 1/4 cup chocolate chips in a microwavable-safe bowl and microwave on high power for about 30 seconds, or until melted;stir until smooth.
3. Beat the melted chips into the cream cheese mixture. With a spoon, stir in the remaining chocolate chips.
4. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full with your batter and then drop a heaping teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture into the center of the batter in each cup.
5. Bake cupcakes according to directions.

Wowie! That's a lot of chocolate going on in there!

They plump up so nice! Now you can leave these and eat like so, or get out some frosting and make them that much better! I chose the frosting!

I wanted to use some strawberry frosting and I used a pretty generic recipe as so:
1/2 cup frozen whole strawberries, thawed
1 cup unsalted butter, firm & slightly cold
pinch of coarse salt
3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Place strawberries in the bowl of a small food processor; process until pureed.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add confectioners' sugar; beat until well combined.
3. Add vanilla and 3 tablespoons strawberry puree. (I added a lot more because I wanted a strong strawberry flavor!) Mix until just blended.
4. Frost!

I also bought some fresh strawberries (as I was going to make the version @ I heart nap time) so I decided I still wanted to use them on the tops of my cupcakes. I dipped them in melted white chocolate chips and sprinkled some red sanding sugar all over them. Beautiful!

 Some I left without a strawberry but drizzled white chocolate over the tops. The hardness of the chocolate drizzle gave it a nice crunch!

 Top view!

Want to show someone you love them? These will do the trick! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

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