S'mores Cupcakes

Oh my. The S'mores cupcakes made a reappearance this year. Better than ever I would say, in fact. (Old post.)

Three yummy ingredients; Ghirardelli chocolate, marshmallow (cream) and cinnamon graham crackers. One result; delicioussssss.

I ate like 7 of these over the course of three days. Don't judge me. It was vacation. Calories don't count, ha.

Get ready for a super picture heavy post! I had help taking pictures this time by the birthday girl herself. Her pictures are the ones that aren't crappy.) You can find her blog on fashion, art and photography here. She requested these specifically. And because she made the banner for this site, she gets what she wants. (Plus snickerdoodle cupcakes and cookies.) Last year she got the Catch A Husband Strawberry Cupcakes in b&w zebra liners. So this year, i decided to run with the theme.

I had pink zebra liners i had yet to use, as well as these awesome zebra candles i picked up in a shop in Philly last year. Then i added in some plain pink candles too. (DON'T COUNT HOW MANY THERE ARE. SHE WILL GET MAD.) All together on the cupcakes stand, they looked pretty gosh darn awesome. But more on that later.

The recipe for this is basically in three parts. And it varies a little from what i did last year. This year I did something different with the graham crackers, and the batter was from scratch.

Graham Cracker Crust/Topping

1.5 packages of Cinnamon Graham Crackers

3/4 sticks of butter

1. Place all crackers into a ziplock bag and crush them into pieces with a rolling pin.

2. Separate out 1/4 cups of broken graham crackers, put the rest in a bowl.

3. Melt 3/4 of a stick of butter in the microwave and pour over the graham crackers pieces in bowl.

4. Mush them together with your clean hands.

Now comes the fun part.

1. Scoop 1 tablespoon of the mixture into lined cupcake pans. (Or scoop 1 teaspoon into mini cupcakes pans.)

2. Flatten out with your hands.

3. Put in preheated, 350* oven for 5 minutes and remove, set aside to cool.

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

(Makes 24 standard cupcakes, but if using this for smores it will make 24 standard plus 24 mini cupcakes)

Go here for my go-to chocolate cupcake recipe. Use Ghirardelli coco powder though b/c thats the only thing i'll use now. :)

Add 1 cup chocolate chips. Yum.

Now, take your batter and pour it OVER the baked graham cracker crust. I did the usual amount b/c i wanted mine to be big monster cupcakes.

Oh what is this though?

That's right, i sprinkled about 1 teaspoon of the remaining graham cracker crumbs over the top of the unbaked batter. And THEN you put it in the oven.

When they come out they look like this. You can just eat it on its own, huh?

But just wait my dears. Cuz i did. I had to wait until the next day, in fact. They were transported to another place (beach house, holla') and were frosting'ed up there.

photo credit: pandippo

Marshmallow Frosting

1 jar Jiff Marshmallow Frosting (7 oz)

1 stick unsalted butter at room temp

2 cups powdered sugar

1. Yes the whole can of the stuff. And you will like it. Put it into a big bowl and add the butter. Beat together.

photo credit: pandippo

2. Add sugar, beat until light and fluffy.

photo credit: pandippo

photo credit: pandippo

photo credit: pandippo

Use a 1M tip to frost the cupcakes until they look like this:

photo credit: pandippo

Awesome huh.

I also used the 1M tip to frost the little mini cupcakes with just a dollop of frosting. The 1M tip is also called a star tip and with good reason. A dollop looks like a star :)

photo credit: pandippo

photo credit: pandippo

And then you eat them. All. No I'm kidding. Then you make them even prettier. Add the snickerdoodle cupcakes and a stand.

Then add the candles. Now the hard part.

Lighting them REALLY fast.

photo credit: pandippo

It becomes a group effort!

photo credit: pandippo

Looks awesome lit though! :)

I hope to God she didn't wish for more cupcakes.

Melty zebra-ness.

Pretty Birthday girl about to eat her cuppycake.

photo credit: pandippo

Okay, NOW you can eat them. All.

photo credit: pandippo

xoxo,

Anna

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

So i tried baking from scratch on for size. And i'd like to say it was a great success. A roaring success. In fact, im pretty sure when im ready to make the commitment, ill use them as bait to catch a tall, tanned and handsome husband. I'd add my usual "with abs" at the end of that sentence, but we know that said imaginary husband won't have any if he's shoving his face with cuppycakes.

I digress. Back to my Catch A Husband Cupcakes. I think from now on, any recipe i find online im just going to eliminate 1/2 of the powdered sugar and go from there. Cuz i couldnt imagine ruining the cream cheesey-ness of these with more sugar. I actually ended up making two batches. (Cuz i had a LOT of left over frosting.) The first were a lot better than the second and it's because i processed the strawberries differently. It completely made the cupcakes and i will only ever do it this way. Seriously. I mean yeah, i might have burnt my mom's sauce pan a little -- but did i mention i got four proposals? Worth it.

The following is my altered version of the recipe that i used - that i originally found here, after stalking the Internets for 2 weeks for the perfect one.

Strawberry Cupcakes
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 and 2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking power
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup "strawberry sauce"
1/2 cup milk

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
16 ounces cream cheese
1 stick of butter
3.5 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup of "strawberry sauce"
Pink Food Coloring Gel
*note this made wayyyyyy too much frosting. lol. So you might want to change it a little to make less.

Strawberry Sauce (to be used for both cupcakes and frosting)
1 and 1/2 cartons of fresh strawberries
3 teaspoons of sugar


It's the strawberry sauce that really made them. In comparison to the ones i made the next day, where i simply blended the strawberries and added some sugar to them, these were like 100 times better.

To make the Strawberry sauce, you just take the stems off the berries and cut them in half. Put two teaspoons of sugar on top of them in a bowl and let them sit there for about 15 minutes. Then you put them in a small saucepan with a lid on medium heat. STIR OFTEN OR YOU WILL BURN THEM. Don't tell my mother. =x

Everytime i opened them to stir them it was like magic in my nostrils. The smell was simply intoxicating. They get all mushy and mixed with the sugar... it's crazy.
In abuot 10-15 minutes, when theyre all saucey and you want to shove your face in them, take them out and finish pureeing them to your preferred consistency. Add more sugar if needed. I just added one teaspoon, but it probably didn't even need that. Yeah it looks kinda gross...

Let cool before using (like all the other ingredients, it should be at room temperature. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in one bowl. In the other, beat the butter until its fluffy and then add the sugar. Add one egg at a time, beating for 30 seconds in between each one. Mix the strawberry sauce with the milk in a cup. Add one fourth of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/eggs. Then add 1/3 of the milk/strawberry sauce. Alternate adding the flour and sauce, ending with the flour. I will admit it. I tasted the cake batter. =x And it was good. It looked like a milk shake. It was gorgeous. (And i got to use my new mixer!)


And they cooked so pretty too! I love seeing cupcakes in their pans. All naked, ready for their frosting.
These were for a friend who shares an affinity for all things animal print. So of course, she got the zebra liners. Was there ever any doubt?


The frosting. Oh that frosting. Cream cheese. I once had a friend tell me that he thinks i would probably eat a whole brick of cream cheese on a stick. And you know what, if society didn't frown on that i totally would. Don't judge.

Beat the butter and the cream cheese together on medium speed until it is nice and creamy. Add half of the sugar. Add as much strawberry sauce as you'd like. Add the remaining sugar. Add food coloring (gel gel gel! none of that watery crap). I stuck it in the fridge for a while to get a little harder b/c i was using a piping bag. Piped it on with a 1M tip and ziplock, and then ate one before anyone saw me.

It made 28 cupcakes. And i had enough frosting to frost another 14 the next day. Oops. So yeah, you can seriosuly cut down on the frosting measurements haha. You can just do half, especially if you will use it to spread on the cupcakes instead of using it for piping. (Plus you can always garnish with real strawberries.)

Once i was done with them all, i put them in my trusty cupcake carrier and ran off to present the birthday girl with her pink zebra cupcakes.

And all 24 were eaten by the end of the night! Cuz there's nothing sadder than taking home rejected cupcakes, you know.


Next, i have my eyes set on choco-penut butter and on pineapple-mango... 'till then!

xoxo,
Anna