Cuppy Cakes!

In order to thank my husband's colleague for all the baby clothes she gave us, I decided to bake something for her and her family. I couldn't just make chocolate chip cookies or something innocuous like that. I tried making a blondie bar recipe, but doubling the recipe seemed to screw it up (way too much butter for the bars to set up in a presentable fashion). So back to the drawing board. Mrs. L convinced me to take a spin through our new favorite inspiration site, Tastespotting to see what there was to see. So many ideas were generated, but given that this family I was baking for includes an elementary school aged kid, the S'mores Cupcakes were the winners.

I deviated a fair bit from the linked recipe mainly due to time constraints and my patience level.

First off, you make a standard graham cracker/butter crust and press it into the bottoms of muffin cups (I had to add in some vanilla wafers because my graham supply was low). After baking off the graham crusts for a few minutes, I added in some chocolate chips and put it back in the oven for about 2 minutes.



Then, using a box chocolate cake mix, I filled the cupcake cups and topped with more graham/wafer crumbs and baked according to package directions.

Here's a foggy shot of the baked cupcakes

Meanwhile, Mr. R helped me make the frosting. Whisk 8 eggs whites, 2 c sugar, and some cream of tartar over a double boiler until the sugar is dissolved. The constant whisking action is in effect in this picture.


Then whip in the stand mixer for 5-7 minutes until fluffy. I added some vanilla and apparently slightly over vanilla'd the mixture.


Then haphazardly frost said cupcakes. Clearly, I do not have the frosting skills of the ladies in Buffalo with Fairy Cakes but it wasn't awful for a Monday night effort. People seem to be enjoying these cupcakes - not being a s'mores person myself, I'm not the ultimate decider on the cupcakeworthiness. Hopefully some recipients of said cupcakes will give me good feedback!