Happy Nondeminational Winter Holiday, Everyone!

It's that time of year again. For those of you that are familiar with a calendar, you know that I'm talking about Christmas. If I were to say that I look forward to the festivities all year, I'd be lying. I'm going to be blunt here for a moment, the holidays bring out the worst in people. The fact that I've spent the last eight Decembers working in retail may have something to do with that, but that's neither here nor there. In addition to retail hell, if you're a student, you also know Christmas as the brief period of time between soul-crushing finals and the disappointment you feel when you see your final grades.

But because I'm not completely Scrooge McDuck (yet), I'm still able to find a little joy in some parts of the holidays. For those of you that don't know me very well, that slight glimmer of happiness is Ghirardelli's peppermint bark. In any and all forms. My obsession first started off a few years ago when the undisclosed craft store with a male's name at which I worked started carrying the chocolate bars. The chocolate au naturel was my gateway drug. The next year the bars just didn't cut it, so I tried Haagen Daz's Peppermint Bark ice cream. This year, instead of injecting it straight into my veins, I thought I should make an incarnation of my own. Naturally, it was going to be in the form of a cupcake, because it's the one baked good that I seem to get right on a consistent basis. The special occasion? My College Students in Broadcasting club's last meeting/holiday party/white elephant gift exchange.

The Filling

I found it difficult to not eat the entire bag by myself.

For a week, I racked my brain trying to figure out the anatomy of this cupcake. The flavors were already outlined for me: white chocolate, milk chocolate, and peppermint candy pieces. Of course I had to use Ghirardelli chocolate in this recipe, otherwise it would just be wrong. I had the what, just not the how. In true PPC fashion, I finally decided to incorporate the milk chocolate in a ganache to fill the centers of the cupcakes. Ganache, is there no better word in the English language? I don't know about you, but for me there isn't. It takes me back to last December when Kyle and I first started dating and I told him about my pipe dream of competing on Food Network's Cupcake Wars. Naturally, he had no idea what I was talking about, so I searched on YouTube for a clip to show him and we discovered that someone had uploaded seasons worth of full episodes. His attention wavered after getting the basic concept of the show, but his interest was piqued we started betting on the outcome of the competitions and I lost my pants. I digress, but the point of me telling this tale is that ganache is quite a popular cupcake staple on that program. Being a male, Kyle also had no idea what ganache was, so when he asked and I told him that it was basically just chocolate, his response was: "then why don't they just say chocolate?" What a silly boy.

Batch one, full of so much hope. 

The Cake
It was obvious to me that the peppermint flavor was going to be incorporated in the cake batter. After what seemed like a lifetime of cooling, the cupcakes were cored and ready to be filled. Now, it's not often that I fail in the kitchen. Well, that was a blatant lie. I'm still not quite sure what I screwed up here. Maybe the chocolate hadn't cooled off enough. Maybe I cored too much of the cupcake. Either way, the cakes soaked up the ganache filling like some sort of foil wrapped sponge. Luckily it was the magical Garbage Day Eve, so I was able to toss my failures into the compost bin and start anew. It all seemed to work out for the best though, because while waiting for the second batch to bake, I ate the remnants (or "cupcake holes") of the rejects. I have to say, butter and peppermint aren't exactly two flavors I'd like to combine ever again. On attempt number two, I decided to try a new recipe that called for more milk and (a lot) less butter. I think I might actually have a new go-to recipe. The cupcakes taste just as good, but as an added bonus, they have that muffin top that I always strive for. I don't think I'll ever get to say that again. This time around, I decided to not chance having to make a third batch and scrapped the ganache filling.

The Legend

A nice photo before the peppermint candy pieces melted.

The frosting is my favorite part of this cake. It's a slight deviation from the regular buttercream that I usually whip up, substituting half of the powdered sugar with melted white chocolate. It made a frosting that had a hint of white chocolate without being to cloyingly sweet. The problem was that I was still missing an element, the milk chocolate. At this point, it was getting late and I was almost out of chocolate (no thanks to me for eating some from the bag by itself), so I decided to just melt it and spoon it over the frosting as a decorative, yet delicious, garnish. A fistful of peppermint candy pieces thrown on top, and these beauties were ready for the party.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of my cakes making their debut, but people seemed to like them. I came in with what I like to call a "PPC dozen" (it was two dozen, minus two that I had eaten on the way there. Don't judge me, it's a long drive to San Francisco in traffic) and left with none. I'd say that my classmates liked them as much as I did, so I'm calling it a success.