looking for guidelines for turning a cupcake recipe into a mini-cupcake recipe

So...the short answer is you can make these as minis, but it sort of eliminates what is so awesome about the recipe. I didn't have a problem with the ganache sinking so much as that the small amount you could fit in the cupcake rendered it kind of irrelevant. I will stick with the regular size version. thanks for suggestions!

My best suggestion is to transfer the batter to a piping bag (you can make one out of a ziplock bag and cut the corner) so that you don't go nuts trying to spoon the right amount into each little cup, and you won't have splatters everywhere.

Have fun!

I have made mini with and without fillings. I have alway had sunkin fillings with the minis. but the unfilled ones work great. you will get approximately 75 mini's from a standard cake recipe. tey take a good 8 to 12 minutes depending on the color of your pan.
My wife is an officiando of bite sized food and I have shrunk many things. this will turn out great for you.

I'd probably fill mini muffin pan cups half-full to start. Begin checking for doneness at around 7 minutes. Bake one pan first, as a test run, that way you can adjust amount of batter, cook time, etc.

The hardest part is going to be figuring out the portion of the ganache to put on the muffin before baking. I'd figure out the volume of the mini muffin vs. the normal muffin and scale appropriately. They'll obviously bake a lot faster, and the whole ganache filling may not work as well due to the size difference. I'd probably start with a half-batch to make sure it works well before committing to a larger batch. Please report back on how it turns out!

I'm guessing you've realized that you'll need to use mini pans, right? (yuk-yuk!) I'd suggest either making the full batch of batter and making a lot of minis so you can have your cupcakes and freeze them, too, or cut the ingredients in half.