Vegan Chocolate Ganache Filled Cupcakes with Hazelnut Frosting

5 from 2 votes

These light and fluffy chocolate ganache cupcakes are topped with a creamy chocolate hazelnut buttercream. You need to try these.

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

Total Time40

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes

Diet: Vegan

Servings: cupcakes

Calories: 321kcal

Author: DJ

Preheat your oven to 177 Celsius (350F).
Line two 9-hole cupcake pans with 18 cupcake liners. Set aside.
Mix together the apple cider vinegar and the soy milk. This will create your vegan buttermilk. Set aside to curdle 7 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix well.
Next, pour in the curdled soy milk, canola oil and vanilla. Fold the batter well until smooth, then pour in the coffee or boiling water. The batter should now be runny.
Spoon the cupcake batter into the cupcake liners equally. They should be around ¾ full.

Bake for the chocolate cupcakes in the center of the oven for 20 minutes. As this recipe yields 18 cupcakes you will most likely need to do this in 2 batches. A skewer will come out clean when they’re ready.

While the cupcakes bake, quickly make the ganache filling. Melt the chocolate using the double-boiling (bain-marie) method until smooth.
Stir in the vegan double cream over a medium-high heat, then add the salt. Once again make sure that all the ingredients are combined, and that the chocolate ganache is smooth. If you feel that the chocolate is burning a little, lower the heat.
Continue to stir for another minute or so, then pour the chocolate into a bowl and leave at room temperature. Set aside. It will thicken a little. Stir every so often if you need to.

Let the baked chocolate cupcakes cool in the cupcake tins for 10-15 minutes then transfer them onto a cooling rack to cool fully.

While the cupcakes cool, make the hazelnut chocolate frosting, which is incredibly easy. Beat all the frosting ingredients inside a stand mixer with the paddle attachment for 5 minutes until it is nice and thick. Add some extra powdered sugar if you’d like it even thicker. Set aside.

Once the cupcakes have cooled on the cooling rack, fill them. Use a cupcake corer or a small, circular cutter to remove the center of each cupcake. Make sure that you only core roughly ¾ (three-quarters) of the way down each cupcake.
Pour the chocolate ganache filling into each of the cupcakes so that it is slightly overflowing.
Finally, spoon on some of the chocolate hazelnut frosting onto the top of the cupcakes, covering the ganache. I like to use a palette knife. Use the palette knife or a small spoon to swirl the overflowing ganache into the frosting.

For this recipe I love to use a palette knife to spread the frosting onto the filled cupcakes, as opposed to piping. It is easy to do as the frosting has a nice, thick consistency.

I like to use a cupcake or apple corer to core out the cupcakes. They can break if you aren't gentle. Core down the middle of each cupcake until you get to about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way down.

The chocolate hazelnut frosting is easier to make as you simply add all the ingredients to a stand mixer. The most important things with the frosting are that you use a vegan butter block instead of margarine spread and a good quality vegan cream cheese.