Hostess with the Mostess

I like to call this dinner.

I ran across this recipe a few months ago on the net http://heatherdrive.blogspot.com/2009/03/look-alike-hostess-cupcakes.html (Her cupcakes are a million times prettier, probably 100 percent tastier, and I'm OK with that. By the way, someone please teach me how to create a link!). I don't know how I ran across these....the forces of evil had something to do with it, no doubt. We are having a lunch at school this Thursday, and I thought I'd bring these, but I had some issues.
I have about 12 cupcakes that worked out OK (out of 24)....and lots of frustration along the way. Let me just say-the cake batter is delicious, but it burned sooo quickly, and really didn't rise very well, which wasn't a problem since I needed it to be 'sunken' in the middle. BUT it also stuck around the edges to the pan, and fell apart on half of the cupcakes.
The inside icing was OK....I have a feeling that most people with quality taste buds would prefer this, but I kinda like artificial flavor, so it was a little more vanilla, and a little less artificially sweet than I had hoped. I also had trouble whipping it up...not unusual-egg whites and I don't get along. Please let me know if you have any tips for getting egg whites fluffy! I just used a ziplock for piping on the swirls...I was over it by the time I made it this far!
It also called for a bittersweet ganache...and I really prefer milk chocolate, but it scared me to deviate....so I didn't. I also think you should double the ganache-it barely went over the twelve that did turn out....but that's just my humble opinion, and trust me, from the results here, I'm not the expert.
For the sake of photography, I cut one in half, your welcome ;o). Most of the icing does go deeper than the one I chose. I dug out the middles with a spoon just to make sure....bad luck on choosing this one...and at the risk of setting myself back 2(more) weeks on this diet (I also call "my life")....you'll just have to take my word for it.

I guess the hostess cupcake factory is safe for one more day. I'm off to make some 'back up cookies' since I am lacking in quantity, and quality here.