White Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Toasted Almond Flakes

These cupcakes are very good indeed - they are based on a recipe I found on Epicurious for, "White chocolate cupcakes with candied kumquats." Well, needless to say, I couldn't find kumquats when I needed them so opted for something simple - just a ganache and almonds for the topping.

The white chocolate gives the cupcakes a lovely light pound cake consistency and they taste really good - sweet but not too sweet. Here's my adapted recipe:

White Chocolate Cupcakes

8 ounces high-quality white chocolate (I used my favorite - Ghirardelli chips)
2 Tablespoons heavy cream
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 and one-half sticks)of unsalted butter, room temperature
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
3 large egg whites

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line three 6-cup muffin pans with paper liners. Place white chocolate in metal bowl set over pan of barely simmering water. Stir until melted and smooth, adding about 2 Tablespoons cream if the chocolate seems to be sticking and not melting properly. Stir very slowly, constantly. Remove from stove.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and vanilla in large bowl until blended. Add hot white chocolate to sugar mixture; stir to combine. Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with coconut milk in 2 additions, beating batter very slowly just to combine between additions.

Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gently fold egg white mixture into batter in 3 additions.

Divide batter among muffin cups (about 1/4 cup each). Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 33 minutes (original recipe said 25 minutes). Cool completely. Can be made one day ahead. Store in airtight contrainer at room temperature.

Decorate with a dark chocolate ganache and sliced, toasted almonds.

Enjoy - it makes 18 cupcakes so there's quite a few to spare.