Chocolate Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes

I'm not sure why I haven't been posting my cupcake recipes.  I am now known as "the baker" at work, which is pretty amusing considering I definitely consider myself slightly past the beginner stage.  Anyway, this recipe was a clear crowd favorite!  Enjoy!

Chocolate Cherry Coke Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from Homemade by Holman adapted from Annie's Eats

Cake:
3 cups all purpose flour
6 T cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups Coke (don't use diet)
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 can cherry pie filling

Glaze:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3-4 T Coke

Icing:

1 container of whipped cream
Maraschino Cherries for garnish


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pans with liners or spray with baking spray. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa in a bowl and set aside.

In a mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine sugar and butter and beat on medium-high until light and creamy. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating about 1 minute after each. In a large mixing cup or small bowl, combine buttermilk, Coke and vanilla extract. (Make sure you wait for the foam to go down when measuring the Coke and don't worry if your mixture looks curdled when you add the buttermilk.)

Beginning with the dry ingredient mix, add in 4 parts to the butter mixture, alternating with the Coke mixture. Beat each addition just until incorporated.

Transfer the batter to the muffin tins, filling each tin about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the tops spring back when touched lightly and a toothpick inserted in the center cupcake comes out clean. Cool about 5 minutes in the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, use a paring knife to cut out a cone shape in the middle of each cupcake. Add a spoonful of cherry mixture (2-3 cherries) to the well.

Mix together the glaze with a whisk in a small bowl. The mixture should run slowly off a spoon so you can drizzle the cupcakes but it won't run all over the place.

Pipe the whipped cream onto cupcakes as desired and top with maraschino cherries for garnish.