Cupcake obsession

I've been on kind of on a cupcake kick lately. I'm not sure what it is...but I have a funny feeling that I like it because it appeals to my OCD. Think about it. A cupcake is a perfect cake in miniature--it provides the golden ratio of icing to cake to flavors. All within a handy little cake. I appreciate thing that have a great balance of taste and textures.

I've said too much.

Point is, I've been making a lot of cupcakes. The first new recipe was also my most ambitious. My stepmother copied it from a cooking magazine for me and it was a great spin on a S'more Cupcake.


What made this one different was the actual cake. It was a graham cracker based cake, which I thought was really unusual. It's basically your typical white cake, but you leave out some of the flour and sub in graham crackers bits. You end up with a really moist cake infused with graham cracker-ness. Then, you cut a hole in the top of the cake, and pipe marshmallow fluff into the cupcake. Put a layer of chocolate ganache on the cake and top it with a toasted marshmallow cap (put some marshmallow fluff on a cookie sheet and then put it under the broiler) and you got yourself one awesome cupcake.

And I secreted some of them away into the freezer so I can have them for those emergency cupcake moments. You know: a break-up, death in the family, rainy weather, a day that ends in "day," those kind of times.

After the success of the S'more Cupcakes, I tried another new recipe, this time I utilized my Williams Sonoma Star Wars Cupcake kit. Oh, yeah you read that right. The kit basically consisted of cupcake wrappers and these little characters on sticks you could stick into the cupcakes, but whatever. The point is Star Wars + cupcakes = AWESOME.


I went with a very light, very moist chocolate chip cupcake recipe; the batter contained whipped egg whites so it was very fluffy. One problem, the batter was so light most of the chocolate chips sunk to the bottom of the cake during the baking. But whatever. Still yummy. Oh, and the Hershey kiss on top was just for funsies.

My final foray into cupcakes was a bit of a departure. I had a box of Thin Mint girl scout cookies, some peppermint extract, and a dream. You put those Thin Mints in a food processor, make a few tweaks to a dense chocolate cupcake recipe, add some mint flavoring to icing and you got yourself some bangin Thin Mint cupcakes. No picture for these, mostly because they didn't stick around long enough for me to even take one. Also, I think I lost my camera.

The quest for the perfect cupcake doesn't stop here, so if you know any good recipes send them my way. I can reward you with, guess what, cupcakes!