Rocky Road Cupcakes

My niece spent the last 9 days and 10 nights with us and went home this morning; seriously depressing!!! :( I was under strict orders from her mom to not bring her home without cupcakes-- she said if I send her without cupcakes she won't open the door.... so I had two options, keep her forever or send her home with cupcakes. If it weren't for kidnapping being a crime I probably would have chosen to keep her forever. When she is around we seem to frequent Baskin Robbins and her favorite is always Rocky Road ice cream in a chocolate dipped cake cone... and there we have Rocky Road cupcakes!

I started with my favorite chocolate cupcake and added marshmallows and almonds for traditional Rocky Road cupcakes, just marshmallows for those who don't like nuts and added white chocolate chips to a few to experiment. 

When I scoop cupcakes into the cups I'm not exactly careful or clean about it which then leads to the extra work of having to wipe up my pans before they go in the oven. In order to avoid that mess, with runny batters I use this pancake pen-- and it works great! The only downside is I can't mix in my mix-ins until the batter is already in the cups. I added the mix-ins directly to the cups and then added batter, gave them a quick stir and then stuck them in the oven! 

 They came out delicious! Yumm, yumm, yumm!! I love the gooey melted marshmallows mixed with the moist chocolate cake! 

 I used a vanilla buttercream and garnished with almonds and marshmallows!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Rocky Road Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

2 cups sugar 

1¾ cups all-purpose flour- sifted

¾ cup Hershey's cocoa

1½ tsp. baking soda

1½ tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup boiling water

1-2 cups Mini marshmallows

1-2 cups Almonds, chopped or slivered

½- 1 cup White chocolate chips (if desired)

Frosting:

1 can of buttercream frosting

2-3 tbsp. heavy cream

1-2tsp. vanilla

4-6 cups powdered sugar- sifted

Directions

Cupcakes:

1.     Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

2.     In the bowl of your stand mixer stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 

3.     Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat on medium for 2 minutes (until well mixed).  

4.     Stir in boiling water until batter is mixed (it will be a runny consistency).

5.     In the cups divide marshmallows, almonds, and white chocolate chips (if desired).

6.     Divide batter between cups, filling them about ⅔ full.

7.     Place pans in oven and immediately turn oven down to 325º. Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning half way if your oven (like mine) doesn’t cook evenly.

Frosting:

1.     Add buttercream, vanilla and heavy cream to stand mixer.

2.     Beat on medium until well mixed.

3.     Add powder sugar until desired consistency.

Thanks for coming, stay awhile and return often! xoxo 

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Short post tonight and I apologize in advance for the picture quality/lack of pictures. I was rushing and multitasking because I was trying to make and get dinner ready at the same time.... I don't recommend that! The other day I was thinking about a new flavor/idea to try and I was thinking about ice cream flavors... ice cream flavors are usually great cupcake flavors! Now, personally, I am not a mint chocolate chip fan but I know others are and so I decided to go with it! 

I made a chocolate cupcake with chopped up Andes mints mixed in to get the minty flavor throughout the cupcake but keeping the chocolate as the stronger flavor of the cake. 

The chocolate cupcakes turned out great and the candy melted nicely into the batter! 

I used mint extract and a little green food gel for the frosting and mixed in mini chocolate chips at the end to get a good minty chocolate flavor! 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

2 cups sugar 

1¾ cups all-purpose flour- sifted

¾ cup Hershey's cocoa

1½ tsp. baking soda

1½ tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup boiling water

30-40 chopped up Andes Mints

­Frostings:

1 can buttercream

¼ tsp. mint extract

4-6 cups powder sugar- sifted

2-3 tbsp. heavy cream

Green food coloring (if desired)

¾ bag of mini chocolate chips

Directions

Cupcakes:

1.     Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

2.     In the bowl of your stand mixer stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 

3.     Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat on medium for 2 minutes (until well mixed).  

4.     Stir in boiling water until batter is mixed (it will be a runny consistency).

5.     Divide batter between cups, filling them about ⅔ full.

6.     Divide and add chopped up Andes mints between cupcakes.

7.     Place pans in oven and immediately turn oven down to 325º. Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning half way if your oven (like mine) doesn’t cook evenly.

Frosting:

1.     Add buttercream, mint extract, green food gel (if desired) and heavy cream to stand mixer.

2.     Beat on medium until well mixed.

3.     Add powder sugar until desired consistency.

4.     Fold in mini chocolate chips.

Thanks for coming, stay awhile, and return often. xoxo 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I saw these super cute mini breakable cookies at the grocery store and I had to have them... and then I decided, what would be better than a cookie dough cupcake?! In order to keep the cookie dough from being cookies its crucial that the dough be frozen, I let mine freeze for about 2 hours on a cookie sheet prior to baking them. This allowed them to still be cookie dough and for the cupcakes to still look like cupcakes! 

Once the cookie dough was frozen I started working on the cupcakes. We went to WinCo the other day, they just opened one about 20 miles from us, to check it out and reminisce our college days! Nothing beat 10 boxes of Hot Pockets for $10 when we were poor college students! Thats 20 meals at $.50 a meal! Anyways, when we were there cake mixes were on sale so I grabbed a few. Starting with a cake mix definitely makes the process much easier and good results can still be had! 

After I divided the batter between the cups it was time to pull the cookie dough out of the freezer and add it to the batter. I pushed the cookies into the batter to ensure the batter would bake up and around them.  

When I pulled the cupcakes out of the oven I was pleasantly surprised to find majority of them cooked perfectly and only 1 or 2 over flowing the cup! The cookie dough did poke through on most of the cupcakes but since you can't have a cupcake without frosting, it didn't really matter! 

The frosting was very easy to make also! Along with the cake mixes, frosting was also on sale! I started with a can of buttercream as my base and added brown sugar to make that chocolate chip cookie flavor! Adding powdered sugar and heavy cream allows for you to be able to control the consistency of the frosting. This is probably the best piping frosting I've made yet! It is so thick and creamy, holds its shape, and doesn't need to be kept in the fridge to prevent melting! 

 I love the way the cupcakes turned out and I love that when you bite into them you can really see the cookie dough! 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Yield: About 30

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

1 box vanilla cake mix

3-4 tbsp. packed brown sugar

1 cup milk

½ melted butter- cooled

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

30 breakable chocolate chip cookie dough, separated and frozen (about 2 hours in the freezer)

Frosting:

1 can store bought buttercream

4-5 tbsp. brown sugar

4-6 cups powdered sugar

3-4 tbsp. heavy cream

Directions

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350º, line cupcake pan with paper liners
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, mix on low the cake mix and brown sugar
3. Melt butter and set aside to cool
4. Stir vanilla into milk
5. Add milk and butter to dry ingredients and mix on medium
6. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition
7. Mix on medium about 60-90 seconds until well mixed
8. Divide batter between cupcake pans, filling about ½ full
9. Push frozen cookie dough into each cupcake
10. Place cupcake pans in oven and immediately turn oven down to 325º
11. Bake for 20-23 minutes 

Frosting:

1. Add buttercream to the bowl of your stand mixer.
2. Add brown sugar, mix on low.
3. With mixer on low, add powdered sugar and heavy cream until desired consistency.

Thanks for coming, stay awhile, and return often! xoxo