Happy Birthday, Mac!

Today is M.'s birthday. He doesn't like being referred to as M. and insists that we use Mac in our posts instead. So in honor of his birthday M. has officially changed to Mac.

Wow, 11 candles in 1 little cupcake!

Mac invited 3 of his friends over yesterday for a movie, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, pizza and a sleepover. Everyone gave the movie a thumbs up, and seemed to have fun. After the movie we came home and ordered pizza. The kids played Apples to Apples, did some breakdancing, and Webkinz tossing. No one got much sleep, especially Mom, but we all survived the night, and were treated to some of Dad's homemade waffles in the morning. Yum!

S'more Cupcakes

For Mac's birthday I decided to create a new cupcake recipe. This was my first attempt at making S'more cupcakes and I think they turned out pretty good. I wanted the cupcake to be a graham cake, and was going to use graham flour but decided it might be too heavy. So I used graham cracker crumbs instead. I also made a graham cracker crust on the bottom of the cupcake. I iced the cupcakes with chocolate ganache and topped that with marshmallow butter cream and a piece of a Hershey bar. I think using 7 minute frosting would have also worked but decided on butter cream so it wouldn't have to be refrigerated. These were a little labor intensive but definitely worth the effort. I've posted the recipe below.

S'more Cupcakes

Crust

1 cup of graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup of butter, melted

Mix these together and press 1 TB in the bottom of each cupcake liner.

Cake

1 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup of flour

1 1/2 cup of graham cracker crumbs

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 1/3 cup milk

Chocolate Ganache

1 cup of bittersweet chocolate chips

3 tablespoons of heavy cream

2 tablespoons of butter

Melt the chocolate chips and the butter, remove from heat and add cream, mix until smooth.

Marshmallow Butter cream

1 cup of butter

1 cup of powdered sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

7 ounces of marshmallow fluff

Beat butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla until creamy, add fluff and mix until smooth.