hostess cupcakes...kinda

honestly, i'm not a huge fan of hostess because i find their stuff too sweet, but the thought of a hostess cupcake sounded appealing. these cupcakes are basically like hostess cupcakes with a chocolate cake, marshmallow filling & the hostess logo on top. however, i thought the cupcakes would come out too sweet with all the chocolate so i decided to make the base a strawberry cupcake. i decided to try sprinkle's strawberry cupcake recipe.

right out the oven! look at how uniform they look! i love it! it's all thanks to the magical ice cream scooper! i wish i had invested in it them earlier because it would've saved me time & the mess. so like all other bakers, i highly recommend you to use an ice cream scooper to pour batter for regular sized cupcakes!

i have to confess that when it comes to cooling the cupcakes i rarely "cool them completely" like all recipes say. i get super excited to frost them & i don't have that much patience to hold off on them, especially with these because i was dipping them in chocolate ganache! here's a video  on how the girls at dc cupcakes make their ganache. it's super simple, fast, & tasty too! it was definitely fun dipping the cupcakes in the ganache, but it was a challenge because i didn't want to squeeze the cupcakes when i held them upside down. i would say to take your time them doing this. you don't want to be in a rush. 

here's some minis i made with extra batter. 

yep, i couldn't resist. i just had to try them!

the final product with the hostess logo!

and some personalized...

i think next time i'll try to make the actual hostess cupcakes & use a chocolate base because i thought the strawberry cupcakes were not sweet at all. i was kinda disappointed since i had high expectations for them especially because they were from sprinkle's. i actually haven't tried their strawberry cupcakes they sell at the store so i guess i can't really compare them to anything, but i know all their other cupcakes are sweet so that's what i expected from these. so overall they tasted alright, but only if you eat it from the middle up so you don't get to much cake! haha. working with chocolate ganache was definitely fun & would try again.