This idea started in the grocery store seeing a new product that sounded tasty, and it grew from there. Our grocery store had this new Duncan Hines plain frosting base that you add a flavor mix packet to in order to make a flavored frosting. I suppose the idea would be that you could keep packets at home and just need one tub on hand to have whatever you need for whatever you make rather than buying one of every flavor tub to be sure you have one in advance.
I don’t tend to stock icing in general. I buy the one I want when I buy the rest of the ingredients for whatever I have planned to make. However, this product has mix packets for flavors that aren’t available in regular tubs, so it’s still a neat option. The one that particularly caught my eye was “chocolate marshmallow” because that sounds awesome. From there, I thought “I bet I could make s’mores cupcakes” and that was about it. I bought graham crackers and a yellow cake mix thinking that would be a good combination, and I went home stirring some plans around in my head.
Before I actually started baking, I googled “s’mores cupcakes” for ideas on how to incorporate the graham crackers. I thought I could either crumple them at the bottom, or mix them in the cake batter. I found recipes that did either, but I liked the look of the ones that had the graham crust bottom best. However, all of these recipes used a chocolate cake and a marshmallow-based frosting. I didn’t have any chocolate cake mix or the necessary almond milk to make the one from scratch (according to the recipe), and on top of that I didn’t feel like making a marshmallow buttercream frosting; that sounded very messy and it was a work night. I opted to use the graham crust, and then kind of wing it from there.
The crusts turned out fine. Next time I might press them a little more because these crumbled when you ate them. Before baking them, I chopped up some semisweet chocolate chips and sprinkled them on top of the crusts because the one recipe used bittersweet bits in this way, but I didn’t have any bittersweet chocolate. I then spooned the batter in and put them in the oven. While they were baking, I remembered an article I had seen on Lifehacker about using a marshmallow as an alternative to icing. Evidently you put a marshmallow into each cupcake at about 5 minutes before the end of baking, and it melts down and makes an icing-like cap. I already had an icing in mind for these, but I thought that an opportunity to test this as well as get more s’mores elements into the cupcakes was too good to pass up. I stuck three mini marshmallows into each because one regular-sized one seemed too big. They made it difficult to determine when the cupcakes were done because they slimed a little and made the cake seem like it was still batter, and I had to dodge them to test with a toothpick. Still, the cupcakes turned out alright. The marshmallows just sort of sank in and got melty- they didn’t spread at all like I’d thought they might.
I then mixed the flavor packet into the frosting base which was probably the easiest step up until now. From there, it was just frosting cupcakes as usual. I found that the icing did seem thin compared to most tubs, but it tasted awesome. There also seemed to be plenty left in the tub, so Jeff and I started smearing it on extra graham crackers and sandwiching them together, which was a delicious unhealthy snack.
Overall I liked how the cupcakes came out, but I think the flavors could have blended together a little more. I wanted to bite into it and pause and say “oh my god, that’s amazing,” but it didn’t happen. Still, they were very popular at work and only 3 came home with me (a new record) since people found ways to transport some home for later. Several people also stopped me or emailed me to tell me they were delicious, which is also very rare, so perhaps I am just too hard on them.
No comments:
Post a Comment