Wednesday, March 25, 2009

s'mores cupcakes


a campfire treat in cupcake form

a few weeks ago husband asked me to bake cupcakes for a celebration of one of the doctoral candidates in his program. she was defending a few days prior and he had heard her favorite treats were cupcakes. i had no idea what kind, though, so i began browsing interesting flavors that i hadn't made before. i was in search of two kinds: something rich and chocolatey and something light and fruity. i came across these s'mores cupcakes on sew darn cute and was sold. hers look so adorable and delicious, i knew people wouldn't be able to resist.



chocolate domes!

as sew darn cute suggested, i used the one-bowl chocolate cupcakes recipe from martha stewart. i'm not going to rewrite it here because i'm feeling lazy and because it's linked right there! one note, i am sensitive/allergic to safflower oil and substitued with plain old canola. it didn't seem to negatively affect the recipe. these cakes came out beautifully domed and didn't even settle too much after cooling.


naked vs. dressed

the marshmallow frosting is where.it's.at. seriously.

marshmallow frosting (sew darn cute)

1/2-3/4 lb. (2 or 3 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 lb. (2 cups) confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
16 oz. tub of marshmallow cream

1. cream the butter on high until light and fluffy
2. add the confectioner's sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, and beat until fluffy each time
3. beat in the vanilla until incorporated
4. add the marshmallow fluff and mix until creamy

this came together easily. sadly, husband could only find 14 oz tubs at the store so it was not quite as marshmallow-y as it could have been. but there's no way i need 12 oz of leftover fluff in my house, as good as fluffer-nutters are...no way.

top the piped frosting with crushed grahams (i put them in the food processor until they were fine crumbs) and an individual piece of hershey's chocolate.


boxed and ready for the party

i made about 24 of these, plus a few small ones for testing at home (very important). the frosting doesn't hold up as well as some and fell into itself a bit overnight (you can see this in the boxed picture above), but we kept the cupcakes in our cold pantry and they still tasted fantastic the next day. the doctor and grad clan loved these. there's no mistaking the s'mores taste - the chocolate cupcake was rich and dense, frosting sticky and sweet, and people cannot resist a cake that has a chocolate bar as decoration.

the worst part about this recipe was the leftover frosting, hershey's, and grahams. what to do with these? husband and i were forced to eat them. it was extrememly difficult. what's more, i was then talked into eating 2 of the cupcakes at the event. by talked into, i mean i was forced, yes! by, um...by myself.

stayed tuned for the fruity cupcake option!

3 comments:

#1SAHM said...

I love s'mores! Yum! These look and sound delicious : )

Thomas said...

I'm so jealous I never got to eat the trashcakes! They look s'amazing! (It's not *that* much of a stretch knowing how some folks pronounce s'mores, the I think correct way. And that's saying something because it's hard for me to admit I don't do something the correct way.)

Becca said...

These are so cute! I can't wait to make these!