Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

My mom's birthday was Saturday and to celebrate, I baked her Grandma Bessie's strawberry cake... with a slight, dark chocolate, twist. USUALLY {okay, most of the time}, my experiments turn out very, very badly. Lets just say I've had to clean burnt cake out of my oven many times.... However, this experiment turned out deeeelicious! And, in my opinion, the chocolate was EXACTLY what this recipe was missing.  

Great-Grandma Bessie's Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

Note: I made cupcakes because the ganache scared me... I didn't want to ruin yet another cake!

Step One: Make the cupcakes

Great-Grandma Bessie's Strawberry Cake Recipe {The Original}

1 Box White Cake Mix - I use Duncan Hines

1 Package of Strawberry Jello

1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil

1/2 Cup Water

4 Eggs

1/2 Box/Bag Frozen Strawberries

Combine cake mix and jello. Add cooking oil and water. Beat together. Add eggs. Beat. Fold in strawberries. Makes two 8 rounds or 24 cupcakes. Bake as directed on the cake mix box. 

Step Two: Add ganache (i.e. chocolate!)

Ganache

For the chocolate, I wanted to use a dark chocolate ganache. I researched lots of recipes and they were pretty much all the same, however, here is the one I used. Worked perfectly! Fool proof. Seriously.

Once my ganache had been mixed and slightly cooled, I dipped my cooled cupcake in the mixture.  It looked something like this:

Dipping

Dripping

Step Three: Let ganache cool to set and then add frosting

Strawberry Frosting

My great-grandma Bessie had a recipe for frosting too, however, since I am a novice baker {at the best}, I could NOT decipher what she meant by "2/3 stick butter". Does she mean 2/3 cup?  Well, I tried that... and it didn't work.  

Moving on to plan B...the Hubs rushed off to the store to purchase a can of strawberry frosting for me to "doctor".....I did so blending 1/2 cup of frozen pureed strawberries and 1/2 cup of powdered sugar to the canned frosting. Add more powdered sugar if frosting is too runny.

Step Four: Top with a chocolate covered strawberry, chill prior to serving!