Mini Layer Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache

I decided to make Justin a gluten free cake so that I could enjoy some too. I wanted to make an old favorite of his into a gluten free version. I knew I wanted to make a layered chocolate cake, so I browsed through my Cupcake Cookbook. All the recipes make smaller quantities than normal gluten-filled recipes.  So I settled on making a mini cake and some Hostess-like cupcakes.

I followed the chocolate cupcake recipe on page 22. I poured about a half cup of batter into my mini cake pans.

The remaining batter filled four cupcakes. A perfect portion for two people! Who really needs 22 cupcakes at once?

Elana Amsterdam has a recipe in her book that is for cream-filled chocolate cupcakes. The chocolate cake recipe is the same one from page 22. I looked at her meringue frosting recipe and decided not to try it. I wanted to make the filling I used to use when I would make the cupcakes with wheat flour. (You can find a picture of these in the "Full of Gluten" tab.) Here is the link to the cream-filled cupcakes I used to make. For these cupcakes, I followed the filling recipe ONLY! The marshmallow insides are so sticky and still a pain in the butt to get in the pastry bag.

Another reason I chose to use my old recipe was because you fill the cupcakes by inserting the tip into the cupcake and squeezing. In Amsterdam's book, she calls for you to cut out the bottom of the cupcake.

I wanted to dually use the chocolate ganache so I had to make sure I filled the cupcakes before I made my ganache. To make the ganache, you boil heavy whipping cream, chocolate chips, and vanilla. 

When the ganache was still warm, I dipped the cupcakes.

The glazed look.

My only complaint was that for some reason they sank in the center where I had filled the cupcakes. I never had that problem before, so it must have been something about the consistency of the GF cake mix.

Not too bad, if I do critique myself!

Now onto the cake...

Looks good

But I managed to make a major mess!

The ganache was a little troublesome (for me). I needed to put it in the fridge so it could thicken. I came up with the grand idea of putting it in a pastry bag first. I covered the tip with plastic wrap. At first, it went in with no problem. All of the sudden is started pouring out...epic fail! I squeezed the mixture back into the pot and into the fridge it went. 

I was constantly checking the fridge for the perfect consistency. It seemed to be going no where fast, so into the freezer I put it. Wrong move again! Now it was too hard. I felt like Goldilocks. I screamed several times through out this process. Patience would have solved it all.

I was able to mix it up enough to obtain a spreadable mixture. I used the pastry bag to layer the cake. It worked really well and created thicker frosting layers.

I spread the rest with a butter knife around the cake.

And check out that inside! It was very sweet but tasted similar to the original gluten counter-part.