Hey… psst… as of midnight last night, er, this morning, the cookie jar giveaway is officially over! Congrats to the winner, Sarah – enjoy your cookie jar! And thanks to everyone else who entered. I hope to have many more in the future.
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I bake after midnight a lot. More than most, I’d guess. And lately I’ve been in baking mode; clafouti & cookies & cupcakes, oh my. But see, here’s the rub. When the weather gets hot, I hate to turn on the oven, so I try & do my baking at night (or the early morning) when it’s cooler. I’m kind of old fashioned like that. Even with air conditioning… I still hate to have the oven on when the temperature is over 80º degrees unless it’s 100% necessary. And you’d think that with cupcakes it’d be necessary. And it is. But not necessary enough. So I do it at night when everyone’s asleep (well, almost everyone… Jay does work until 2:30 a.m. after all) & the sun is down, & it’s way cooler. This guy might or might not be awake, too.
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Anyway. If I’m lucky, it’s cool enough (and the humidity is low enough) after midnight to fling all the windows open and get fresh nighttime air. I’m a full-on night owl, that’s when I do my best thinking too. It’s when I came up with this.
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S’mores cupcakes have been done before. Tons of times. You’re probably thinking, “Been there, done that, seen it on Pinterest.” And you’d be right. But I don’t really like to try & reinvent the wheel, here. I like the classics. Forget about inventing taco cupcakes or some crazy shit. I like reworking the classics & trying new ways of doing them. I’m just nutty like that. I mean, isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over & over & expecting different results? I think someone said that once. It probably wasn’t anyone I know, though, they’re all a bunch of damn lunatics themselves.. It..
At any rate, I decided to recreate a classic cupcake in a way I never did it before. S’mores cupcakes are some of my favorite cupcakes ever. The last time I made them was quite some time ago, and it was this recipe. That recipe is awesome- don’t get me wrong. But I wanted to try something different. Side note: do you think it’s normal I look back on my blog posts from 4 years ago and cringe? ‘Cause I do. Mainly because the pictures suck. Anyway… s’mores. What’s there not to like about them? And they’re pretty much perfect for this time of year; s’mores themselves are a summer staple, aren’t they? They’re made at cook-outs, barbecues, camping trips, etc. And this is a less messy way of having your s’mores and eating them too. Although a messy s’more right off the fire is a lovely thing.
This time I decided to make a rich dark chocolate cupcake and sprinkle it with graham cracker crumbs before baking it.
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Then once they’re out of the oven and almost cooled, I put a large marshmallow on top…
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And then stuck ‘em under the broiler; toasting the marshmallow and melting it, creating a “frosting.”
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As it settles, it melts down onto the cupcake. And there you have it.
A new take on the s’mores cupcake.
S’MORE CUPCAKES
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup Hershey’s® Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- about 4 or 5 honey graham crackers, crushed
- 12 large marshmallows
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350º degrees F. Line a 12-count cupcake tin with cupcake liners.
- Sift together cocoa powder, flour and baking powder. In another bowl whisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk and vegetable oil. Gradually whisk flour mixture into sugar mixture. Mix until thoroughly incorporated.
- Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Add a heaping teaspoon of crushed graham crackers on top of each cupcake. Bake in preheated oven for 12 – 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Allow to cool for several minutes in the cupcake pan, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool just enough so they can be handled. Once cooled, but yet still warm, transfer cupcakes to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Top each cupcake with a large marshmallow. Slide under the broiler and broil until browned, bubbly & melted. Remove immediately. Allow marshmallow to cool enough so that it won’t burn your mouth, then eat away!
I got my brown cupcake liners from sweet estelle’s baking supply. I like using dark brown liners when making chocolate cupcakes, I think it looks much nicer than a white one or a colored one. Most colored ones aren’t greaseproof enough to work on chocolate cupcakes. Unless they’re from the Confectionery House or Sutton Gourmet Paper. But that’s just my two cents. I prefer to use brown or black liners for dark cupcakes, I like the look. But I also like potato chip sandwiches, hot sauce in macaroni & cheese, dipping french fries in blue cheese dressing, the smell of gasoline and shaving the sides of my head. I don’t expect you to fully agree with everything I say.
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The neat thing about these is that the next day, the marshmallow is still soft & gooey. So they’re good warm and they’re also good the next day.
Or for breakfast. Not that I’m encouraging that at all, kids. S’mores cupcakes and Coke are NOT a balanced breakfast, but I eat it anyway and feel the same silent, secret shame I feel when I actually like a Coldplay song.
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ohemGEE!! i’m sitting here drooling ‘rilla!!
if i ever start cooking, i think i’ll just start baking. seems funner and much more rewarding haha!
Haha! Well, cooking may be easier, but baking is definitely more fun (I think so, anyway).
WOW! De-LISH looking. Definitely trying these next. Also going to take the advice of baking either in the AM or late night. I have a gas oven on top of a tiny apartment that once the oven warms up the whole apt does too, not so great when it’s 95 degrees out. Thanks for the ideas and great recipe
Thanks Sarah
Sometimes those old school ways of doing things are the best ways. There’s a reason why they’ve stood the test of time! People say “Why bother when you’ve got A/C?” and I say, “Do you open your windows when you have the A/C on? Then why put the oven on and override all the cool air with heat?” Makes sense to me! Especially if your oven heats the entire freakin’ kitchen AND living room like mine does!
What a great idea…I am vegan, but I think I may make this for my children who are not.
They’re DELICIOUS. DELICIOUS.
These look awesome! Living in Texas, I long for the days when it was only 80 degrees and I used the oven regularly. I have a question, though. Any time I bake things that can be shipped, I double the recipe and send some to a friend of mine that’s stationed in Afghanistan. Any suggestions on recipes that can be easily shipped? I generally stick to things like cookies and muffins since the frosting on cupcakes makes them so hard to ship.
Ugh Gail.. it’s currently 99 degrees here and my face is melting off. So I know the feeling.
I don’t know of any good cupcake recipes, because of the frosting like you said. Unless you make a filled cupcake, but I don’t think that’d hold up well on the trip. I have a coffee cake recipe coming up in a few days, that might travel pretty well.
I just sent cupcakes over to Afghanistan to a friend of mine. I sent it in a medical supply grade styrophoam shipping cooler. I put the cupcakes in 2 half dozen containers that you would see in a grocery store, and then wedged them in the cooler with ice packs on either side. They made it there ok, but the frosting was smashed. He and his friends didn’t seem to mind though!
It only cost about 10.50 to ship though probably because I used a styrophoam shipping box. Let me know if you have any better luck with any other types of cupcakes and frostings (I sent Margarita cupcakes with lime buttercream)
Mackenzie thanks so much for commenting with that! I hope Gail sees it.