This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
My first cupcake challenge! I was asked by one of my coworkers to make his favorite Bakers Square, French Silk Pie into a cupcake form. My response to that, was naturally, how bout I just make you a French Silk Pie instead? Pie is pie, cupcakes are cupcakes… two different names for a reason. He said no, I want this pie to be a cupcake. Ha! Well, against my better judgement, I created a French Silk Pie cupcake. And really, this experience taught me that any pie can be turned into a cupcake… so welcome to a new world of possibilities!! More pie-cupcakes coming soon, thanks to Tony as his creative brain!
I legit lost sleep worrying that these would be a disappointment.. Is there seriously anything worse than being challenged only to fail the challenger. And when you are experimenting and riffing in the kitchen, it’s not always happy results. I actually messed up at one point and considering tossing the whole thing and trying again some other time. But luckily with a few google searches I was able to reverse my mistakes (of course the corrected recipe is posted below).
So as you can imagine, the ultimate test was when Tony took the first bite yesterday morning as soon as I walked into work. “This is exactly what I hoped it would be” . Followed by him downing several more 🙂 After sharing them with others, there was nothing but rave reviews. Even for the people that said, hmm I don’t really like chocolate. They LOVED them even still.
I’ve been doing my cupcake Friday’s for about 1.5 years at my job, and yesterday our Finance SVP told me, this is by far the best cupcake I have brought in. So that’s saying a lot for sure.
If you like chocolate mousse or french silk pie, cupcakes and fresh whipped cream = this recipe will be right up your alley!
Only thing to keep in mind if you are bringing these to a gathering, they have to stay refrigerated until serving. Otherwise the filling and whipped cream will not stay firm. Although it’s an investment of time, I hope you find that these are absolutely well worth the effort.
A few short cuts to help save time:
- Boxed cake instead of scratch made cupcakes
- Canned whipped cream for the final topping (won’t look as pretty though)
- Skip the pie crust garnish
- Make the filling and whipping cream one day ahead and leave it refrigerated and tightly sealed to prevent smells from permeating
Whiskey Chocolate French Silk Pie filled Cupcake
Print recipe
Ingredients
French Silk Pie Filling
- 2/3 cups Sugar
- 2 Eggs, large
- 2oz Unsweetened Chocolate, melted
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup Butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cup Heavy whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons Confectioners sugar
- 1 Dark chocolate bar (Lindt or Cadbury prefered (at least 62%))
- 1/4 cup Whiskey (decent brand or better)
- 2 tablespoons Bailey's (optional)
Chocolate cupcakes
- 1 1/2 cup Granulated sugar
- 1 cup All-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup Cake flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
- 1 teaspoon Baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Dark cocoa powder (Hershey's Special Dark preferred)
- 2 teaspoons Instant espresso powder (Medaglia D'oro preferred)
- 2 sticks Softened butter, salted
- 4 Eggs (room temp)
- 1 cup Sour cream (room temp (can sub w/ greek yogurt or buttermilk)
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
Pie Crust
- 2 sheets Prepared pie crust (Pillsbury, refrigerated)
- 1 teaspoon Softened butter, salted
- 2/3 cups Dark chocolate chips (Scharffen Berger or other chocolate with high percentage of cocoa butter for tempering)
Directions
| Chocolate cupcakes | |
| Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking pan with 24 baking cups | |
| Combine all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time. Then the vanilla extract and sour cream. | |
| Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as you combine the ingredients to be sure the ingredients are evenly distributed. Continue to mix for 1 minute to aerate the batter. | |
| Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full (about 1/4 cup batter). Bake for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool on a cooling rack. | |
| French Silk Pie | |
| In a small saucepan, combine sugar and eggs until well blended. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly. (Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a bowl in the microwave for 1 minute, stopping and stirring every 20 seconds.) | |
| Continue to cook the sugar/egg mixture for about 6-8 minutes or until mixture reaches 160° and coats the back of a metal spoon. Remove from the heat. Stir in chocolate and vanilla until smooth. Remove from heat. Cool to lukewarm (90°), stirring occasionally. | |
| In a small bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whiskey; beat on high speed for 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. | |
| In a large mixing bowl (cold metal mixing bowl ideal), beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add confectioners' sugar; beat until stiff peaks form. Measure out 1 1/3 cups of whipped cream and fold carefully into chocolate mixture. Refrigerate reserved whipped cream for topping. Cool the finished pie filling for at least 2 hours (or freeze for 1 hour) to thicken and set the mixture before distributing into cupcakes. | |
| Filling cupcakes | |
| Cut a 1 inch diameter circle out of the middle of each cupcake, leaving about 1/4 or 1/2 inch edge and bottom of the cupcake. Remove the bulk of the middle inside by scraping it out with a spoon. The idea is to have the pie filling will be sitting inside of a cupcake shell. You can remove less cake if desired. Discard the removed cake. | |
| Spoon the French Silk filling into the cupcake holes until the filling is level with the top of the cupcake, but not spilling over the edge. | |
| If desired, add 2 tablespoons of Bailey's to the reserved whipped cream and whisk together until incorporated thoroughly. Put the whipped cream into a prepared piping bag and pipe as desired onto the tops of each cupcake. | |
| Using a vegetable peeler, peel tiny curls of the dark chocolate bar over each cupcake. Refrigerate the cakes for a few hours before serving to allow the filling to set even more. | |
| Pie Crust Garnish | |
| Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Lay out each layer of pie crust and using a cookie cutter of your choice, cut small shapes of crust and lay them on a cookie sheet. Bake for 5-6 minutes, or until the crust is nice golden brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes. | |
| Meanwhile, heat half of the chocolate chips on a small bowl in the microwave for 45 seconds, stopping each 15 seconds to stir. Once it's mostly melted, remove and add the remaining half of the chocolate chips and stir quickly to melt them into the warm melted chocolate. Add a teaspoon of softened butter and whisk together. | |
| Cover a plate with foil or parchment paper. Dip each pie crust cutout halfway down into the melted chocolate, tap/shake the excess chocolate and place onto plate. Refrigerate for a few minutes until the chocolate sets up hard. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed airtight container to prevent staling. When ready to serve, top each cupcake with the crust, chocolate side down (to avoid softening) | |
Hi Mallory –
I am going to make your French silk cupcakes for a friend’s birthday party. She absolutely loves French silk pie so I am hopeful she will love these as well. Two quick questions – how many cupcakes does the recipe make and do you notice the whiskey and/or Baileys in the recipe. Just asking because I would like it to taste as much like the pie as possible (as did you when you created it) so just wondering if the whiskey just enhances the chocolate or can you tell there is liquor in the cupcakes?
Thank you!
Jill
Hi Jill – That’s so wonderful to hear. It makes about 14 cupcakes, I will make sure to get the yield added on there. These cupcakes are phenomenal and I’m hopeful she will love them. For the whiskey/bailey’s, I’d compare the flavor to Bailey’s chocolate mousse if you have ever had that before. It’s a warmth and kick of liquor but it is pronounced. If you prefer to omit, you can keep the recipe as is and just don’t add whiskey or Baileys. You can also just do 1-2 tablespoons instead.
I hope that helps! Let me know how these turn out. One more thing to note, this recipe does have a few steps and I love to make either the cupcakes or the filling the day/evening before I need them so it’s a bit easier when it comes time to make it.
Hi Mallory,
I am making your chocolate silk pie cupcakes and in the ingredients for the batter you have 2 sticks of butter listed. Do those get added with the eggs and sour cream etc? I am assuming yes but your instructions don’t list butter – just the ingredient list does.
Are there ingredients missing from the filling?
Hi Jessica – all of the ingredients are definitely there. I just went back through and confirmed each line… It looks like the recipe somehow broke the filling ingredients into two sections, so they were spread out in the recipe. So glad you caught this error! That would’ve been frustrating. I corrected it and now it should read perfectly. Thanks again!! 🙂