Summer Treat - Cupcake Style

Last weekend, I decided to play around with one of our favorite camping treats: s'mores. I wondered if it would be possible to capture the goodness of a s'more in a cupcake form.

First step - make good chocolate cupcakes.

County Fair Chocolate Cupcakes

From Essence of Kansas - Taste

• 2/3 c. packed brown sugar
• 1/3 c. milk
• 2 (1-oz) squares unsweetened baking chocolate
• 1/3 c. shortening
• 2/3 c. packed brown sugar
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/3 c. sifted flour
• 1 t. soda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/2 c. milk

Combine 2/3 c. brown sugar, 1/3 c. milk and chocolate in saucepan. Heat until chocolate is melted, mix well. Cool. Cream shortening, 2/3 c. brown sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs. Add sifted flour, soda and salt alternately with 1/2 c. milk, mixing well after each addition. Beat in chocolate mixture. Spoon into paper-lined muffin cups. Bake at 375F for 15 minutes.

And here's where I changed it up a bit. I baked my cupcakes for 12 minutes, pulled the tins from the oven and topped each cupcake with a large marshmallow.

I put the cupcakes back in the oven and baked for the remaining 3 minutes, keeping an eye on the marshmallows. At the end of 3 minutes, they looked like this:

It's important to carefully remove them from the oven, or the marshmallow might fall right off the side of the cupcake. Once I had the cupcakes on a wire rack, I lightly pressed the marshmallows with a fork - centering the marshmallow on the cupcake top and flattening it to cause it to "stick."

But you and I know that s'mores require more than marshmallows and chocolate...you've got to have graham crackers! Enter Teddy Grahams:

Cute, huh?

So what's more important: Cute or Tasty? The answer is Both, of course!!

The vote at the Hayley House was that these were a great cupcake version of a s'more. Give it a try!