S'mores Cupcakes!

My favourite thing about summer is obvious - campfires! And why, might you ask, do I love them? S'mores, of course. It's not quite campfire weather yet though, so I've found a recipe to enjoy S'mores (and cupcakes!) throughout the rest of the year!

Now, I'll be a first to admit that these did not turn out as I'd hoped. They were nowhere near as beautiful as the photos on the original recipe would lead you to believe (but I've a solution for that, so fear not) and they weren't as chocolatey as I would have liked, considering that they're S'mores cupcakes. I think that the next time I make these, I'll go with what was my initial gut instinct to fill them with chocolate rather than use chocolate chips in the cupcakes. Nevertheless, they were pretty tasty and a nice change from the usual. Not to mention, they're so simple!

For the cupcakes, you'll need:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup milk

1 cup chocolate chips
1-2 cups mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line a regular muffin pan with liners, as this recipe yields 12 cupcakes. In a large bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder and salt. Set the bowl aside.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter, oil and sugar. Beat until well combined and smooth and then add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Next, alternately add portions of the dry mixture and the milk to the butter mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips and then fill the muffin pan with the batter.

At this point, the original recipe would have you pour a few mini marshmallows over the batter and then bake the cupcakes 18-20 minutes. However, I found that the marshmallows puffed up as the recipe indicated they would, and then melted everywhere because it was simply too long for them to be in the oven. So I'd suggest that you bake the cupcakes 10 or so minutes and then top them with marshmallows and continue baking for the remainder of the time. This should ensure that the marshmallows puff up and brown but don't just turn into a melted (albeit tasty) mess. Also, as I mentioned briefly earlier, and because of my personal preference, I'd likely omit the chocolate chips in the future and instead fill the cupcakes with a chocolate ganache or fudge or something instead.

The great thing about these cupcakes is that, had they turned out, the marshmallows look so nice that you don't really need icing. Mine weren't quite as beautiful as I'd have liked, however, so I melted some butterscotch chips and drizzled butterscotch on each cupcake.

Let me know how you like these, should you try them yourself! Perhaps, like me, you'll find that these cupcakes are the perfect solution to having S'mores year-round!

Checkerboard Cake How-To

So, remember that lovely Easter Bunny Cake Topper? I had the cake topper prepared, but I needed a cake for it to top. What I settled on was a checkerboard cake. This was a 3 layer, 9" round cake that, when cut, looks like a checkerboard on the inside. It looks pretty neat, and is much simpler to make than many would care to believe, so today I'd like to share with you how it's done!

The first thing you'll need is cake. I used a simple vanilla cake recipe and then coloured half of it pink, and the other half light yellow, after separating the batter into two separate bowls. You can also use two cake batters, such as vanilla and chocolate, or whatever suits your fancy. Keep in mind, however, that when using two different batters you'll have to pay attention - not every cake has the same baking temperature or baking time, which could be problematic. For simplicity's sake, that is why I chose to simply colour my cake batter. Given that it was for Easter, I thought the pastel colours looked nice together and suited the occasion nicely.

The next thing you'll need is a checkerboard cake pan set. I'm sure that if you can't find one of these handy sets (I found mine at a local Michael's), or if you just don't want to pay for one (I found mine on sale), there is probably a way to do this in some makeshift fashion - I found an alternative to the pan set, which you can see here. Let me know if it works!

Now that you have the batter, and the necessary equipment, what you're going to do next is actually quite simple:

1. Grease cake pans (or flour them, or prepare them in some way so that the cakes don't stick)
2. Place the dividing rings in the first cake pan, and fill the center ring with cake batter. I used pink first, and found it was easiest to fill the pans using a large serving spoon.
3. Fill the middle ring next, holding the divider in place, with the second colour of batter (yellow, in my case).
4. Fill the outer ring with the first colour (pink), still holding the divider in place. Once the third and final ring has been filled, pull the dividing ring out of the cake pan, being sure to lift it straight up so as not to disrupt your cake batter.
5. Rinse the dividing ring thoroughly and dry it, before placing it in the next cake pan. Then, proceed to fill the second cake pan in the same way that  you did the first. Use the same colour pattern, which in my case was pink in the center and outer rings, with yellow in the middle. These two layers, which are now the exact same, will be the top and bottom layers of the cake.
6. For the middle layer of the cake, again rinse the divider and then position it in the third pan. This pan is going to be filled in the opposite way of the first two. In my case, I filled the center with yellow, then proceeded to fill the middle with pink batter, and then the outer ring with yellow batter.
7. Bake and cool the cakes as directed according to the recipes.
8. Level the layers as necessary, and then frost and layer the cake. Begin with one of your two matching layers, as it will be the bottom. Layer icing over the top (I used vanilla buttercream) and then position the opposite cake layer on top. Again, ice the top and then position the third layer.
9. Now, ice the cake as desired, cut, and serve!

When you cut into the cake, you should find that you have achieved a checkerboard appearance! This cake has always been a hit for me, and it can be done in so many ways! Once  you get the hang of the dividing ring, feel free to change up the colours, add more in, change batters, etc! I have made several checkerboard cakes, and a few of my favourites included:

- A vanilla and chocolate checkerboard cake with raspberry buttercream icing
- A chocolate and banana checkerboard cake with cream cheese icing, and
- A vanilla checkerboard cake that I coloured using red, green, and white for christmas

Try out some of your own combinations and please feel free to share them either in the comments below or on the Facebook and Twitter pages! Feel free to subscribe the blog, and enjoy your checkerboard cakes until next time!

Easter Bunny Cake Topper

Happy Easter! With Easter looming on the horizon, I needed a cake for the big family dinner - and no ordinary cake, mind you. Something special. After seeing a video on Youtube, I knew just what my cake needed - a white chocolate Easter bunny topper.

Not only did this cake topper look great, it was so simple to make! Much simpler than your friends and family will care to believe, trust me! In fact, I'm going to tell you exactly how you can do it yourself (or any other topper you wish, really).  The steps are as easy as can be:

1. The first thing you'll need to do for this bunny cake topper is find a relatively simple bunny image (Google Images works wonders for this) and print it.
2. Tape the image to a cookie sheet, making sure that it is laying perfectly flat and will not be moving around on you.
3. Tape a layer of waxed paper over the image (this is going to be your working surface, so make sure it's secure). You'll want to use waxed paper because you can see through it to see the outline of your image.
4. Melt white chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl.
5. Let the chocolate cool just slightly - you want it to still be liquid, but you don't want to burn yourself if it's too hot.
6. Prepare a decorating bag with a small round tip, and then fill the icing bag with the white chocolate.
7. Follow the outline of your bunny, tracing it with the white chocolate.
8. Fill in the remainder of the bunny (once I'd done this, I also used a spoon to smooth out the chocolate a bit. I still wanted some texture, but not quite as much as filling in the bunny left)
9. Decorate if desired - I added some mini marshmallows for a fluffy tail, and a butterscotch chip for an eye
10. Allow to cool and harden (I put it in the freezer - it doesn't take long, and will keep overnight for use later if desired)
11. Position on the cake, and voila (I stood it up in icing and found that it remained quite stable).

Easy as can be, right? And it looks pretty nice on that cake! (Which I'll be telling you about in a couple of days, once I have photos of the inside, because there is quite a surprise in there awaiting you! You can subscribe to the RSS feed to find out about that post ASAP) This can be done in smaller versions for cupcakes, and of course you can use any image for any time of year. This process can also be done with buttercream icing to make an icing transfer by simply allowing each colour and layer of buttercream to freeze entirely before moving on to the next layer of colour.

Try out your own cake toppers and leave a comment about how it works! Better yet, check out the Cake Confections Facebook and Twitter pages and let me know about your cake toppers!