Salted Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe

  Ingredients

 Chocolate Cake:

1 box chocolate (or devil's food) cake mix

3 eggs

1/2 C. melted butter, slightly cooled

3/4 C. milk or buttermilk

3/4 C. sour cream

2 tsp. vanilla extract

 Chocolate Ganache:

1 C. chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)

1/3 C. heavy whipping cream

coarse salt for sprinkling

 Chocolate Buttercream:

1 C. butter, softened

1/2 C. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 Tbsp. milk (more as needed)

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 1/2 - 4 C. powdered sugar

Coarse salt for sprinkling

Chocolate dipped pretzels for decoration

  Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.

2. Sift cake mix into a small bowl and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, butter, milk, sour cream and vanilla extract until smooth.

4. Stir in cake mix.

5. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 17-22 minute or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

6. Let cool.

7. Ganache: Use a double boiler to melt cream and chocolate together and stir until smooth. (You can also just microwave the two together, but make sure you use a bowl meant for microwaving, some bowls get scorching hot and that will burn you chocolate.)

8. Dip the tops of your cupcakes in ganache, then sprinkle with a little coarse salt. I used my left over ganache to dip some pretzels I had on hand, put them on foil and popped them in the freezer to set.

9. Buttercream: Beat butter for 2 minutes. Add cocoa powder, milk and vanilla extract and beat again. Slowly add in powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency. If it becomes too thick, add more milk.

10. Once the ganache on the cupcakes have set (should only take about 10 minutes) pipe buttercream onto cupcakes and sprinkle a little coarse salt and top with a pretzel! Be careful to not put on too much salt!