S'Mores Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes last Thursday night to bring to work but got excited about the prettier cupcakes I made this weekend and posted those first. While these cupcakes are definitely not as beautiful as the flower ones, they were pretty awesome. I had first attempted S'mores cupcakes this past summer, and wasn't thrilled with the results. I tweaked the recipe a bit for the reattempt and was much happier.

For the base, I used a mixture of crushed graham crackers, melted butter, and a tiny bit of sugar. I pushed that into the bottom of cupcake liners, and then poured the chocolate cake batter over it. Last time I made these, I used plain chocolate frosting (being a "vanilla girl," this is probably why I wasn't crazy about the first cupcakes) with a toasted marshmallow on top. This time, I used a 7 minute frosting (it's made by cooking egg whites, sugar, corn syrup and water over a double boiler) because the taste and consistency is basically marshmallow. I sprinkled some leftover graham crackers on top.

Extra cupcake sitting on my desk

Making the frosting was pretty cool. My friend Todd and I were standing over this double boiler, watching the initial mixture and thinking there was no way it would be enough frosting for 16 cupcakes nor taste and look like marshmallow. Paula Deen did not let me down though, and within 7 minutes, it was white, shiny and fluffy.

My friend Todd modeling the cupcakes

I made these with a dark chocolate cupcake recipe with less sugar (ok, full disclosure: so really there was less sugar because I was slightly tipsy while baking and mismeasured the sugar). It actually worked out pretty well, and I think it was a more "adult" cupcake with a sophisticated flavor.