A Sweet Idea

The Story: 

I really sort of love the shmaltzy pink, red, and white stuff that appears everywhere this time of year.  I love seeing the hearts and glitter, the roses and swirls.  I love the candy.  So when I saw this picture in the book Hello, Cupcake!, I got excited!



From Hello, Cupcake!

I mean, hello!  How beautiful and exciting is that?  They're mini cupcakes that look like lovely and delectable chocolate treats.  Which they are!  And since we got more muffin tins than we knew what to do with as wedding gifts and MIL had a birthday coming up, I decided to try it!

You're going to think I'm crazy but I couldn't concentrate on homework and I lost sleep over these babies, I was so excited!



The Recipe:

Okay, so I can't really give you the recipe, but I used the chocolate cake recipe in the back of the book, modifying it slightly by halving it and using mini chocolate chips instead of melted semi-sweet chocolate.  I figured mini cupcakes should have mini chips inside them.

I've never made from-scratch chocolate cake before (I'm not sure I've even made chocolate cake from a mix before), but it turned out nicely except that my electric hand mixer has a jet engine in it and usually blows whatever I'm trying to mix all over the kitchen.  Also, the cupcakes were slightly drier than I would have liked, but tasted good--not very sweet at all, which is how I like my chocolate (I'm not really a chocolate fan.  I know!  You can gasp and tell me how freakish I am now). 

The good news is that I now have a really cute apron, so when my mixer sprays cocoa powder or sweetened condensed milk all over my walls and ceiling and shoes, my clothes will stay nice and clean. Look!

I know it's blurry, but it has cute swirly lines all over that spell out "Love," and "Forever," and "Sweet," and things like that.  See?  I am a sucker for this stuff!  And it was only $11, not the $30 that aprons usually cost everywhere.  Okay.  Apron rant finished.

The chocolate bonbons on top of a few of the cupcakes are halved marshmallows dipped in melted store-bought dark chocolate icing (just microwave it 15 seconds, stir, microwave 10 seconds, stir), then chilled.  I used the little writing icing tubes from the store, too, because they were easy and in the right colors.  Then I went crazy with the candy and sprinkles (try rolling just the edges of iced cupcakes in a dish of sprinkles).  I used designer cupcake liners, just because I wanted them to look a little more like wrapped chocolates than decorated cupcakes. 

Some of them I dipped in the melted icing to get a really smooth top, and the for the rest I followed the method used by Magnolia Bakery in NCY which I saw on a video online that I cannot for the life of me find again.




The Verdict:

Sadly, though I do have access to those heart-shaped chocolates boxes, they are somewhere in the vast belly of my mother's house and she was on her honeymoon at the time these were made and served, so that turned out to be a no-go.

This was so easy and fun!! (The hardest part of the whole process was getting the cupcake batter into those tiny little cupcake liners.)  It would be a great project to do with a group of friends or kids.

Yeah, I think mine looked better than the ones in the book, but I'm totally biased!  Anyway, try it!  They're way easier than they look, and delightful to eat!