So, after a bit a deliberation- my partner and crime and I decided on this- chocolate cupcakes with mint creme filled sandwich cookies (you know what I'm talking about.. remember, no name brands) truffles stuffed in the middle. Of course, these cupcakes had to be aesthetically pleasing as well, so we decided to arrange the cupcakes in the shape of a candy dressed Christmas tree. I must say, this was a fairly involved process to put all of this together... good thing it was the weekend before finals week that I decided to take on this project. Whatever.... #YOLO#cookoverbook.
The first step that I did the night before was to make the mint creme filled sandwich cookie truffles. The truffles are best put in the cupcakes if they are cold, so I decided to do it the night before because I didn't have time the next day to let them sit in the freezer for a while... and I really just was anxious to get this show on the road. The truffle making was a bit messy, but quite simple. First, I ground up the a whole package cookies (minus one that I may have eaten) in my handy dandy food processor to make cookie dust. Then I poured the dust into a bowl and mixed it with 8 ounces of softened cream cheese. I pretty much just used my hands for this step, and then made 24 balls out of the mix. Then, I separated them by wax paper and into the freezer they went.
Flash-forward next day. The recipe I used for the cupcakes was http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateCupcakes.html. I followed the directions of this recipe pretty much word for word (after-all, I didn't want to risk screwing anything up, so I decided to just do exactly as it said). However, I did 1.5 times the recipe because I wanted to make 24 cupcakes instead of 16. As far as putting the truffle in, basically what I did was to put a tiny bit of batter (just enough to cover the bottom) on the bottom of the cupcake tin... then I put a truffle in each one and proceeded to cover the truffle with batter. I ended up using all the batter, which is a bit surprising since the truffle is about the size of a golf ball and took up quite a bit of space in each cup, but the cakes ended up rising without overflow and were a perfect size.
Next, I had to tackle the frosting. http://www.food.com/recipe/vanilla-buttercream-frosting-from-sprinkles-cupcakes-222188 was my recipe of choice and boy was it good! After-all, how can you really go wrong mixing powdered sugar, vanilla a butter. I think the most important part of this is to used UNSALTED butter. I never realized until now that if the recipe does not specify salted vs unsalted... use unsalted! I've definitely made some frosting in my day that has tasted a bit weird, and now that I think of it, it was probably because of too much salt! Anyways, I would highly recommend using a standing mixer if you have one, but a good old electric beater could work too if necessary.
Finally, it was time to decorate! Making candy ornaments sounded a bit too involved (I had already spent wayyyyy to much time on this project), but I decided that I could do some sort of Christmas lights. So, I did some research and found the instructions on http://www.hungryhappenings.com/2012/11/quick-and-easy-m-and-mike-and-ike.html to make candy Christmas lights. I learned that fusing together candies with an open flame is lots of fun... and opens so many possibilities for hybrid colored candies.
Finally, we were able to put it all together! (doesn't the attractive color of green on our counter complement the green on the cupcakes well?). Also, don't mind our man of the house, Scuba Steve, in the background. He wanted to be associated. Most importantly did we win? Well, we settled for second place, but Gertrude and I will take that as a win.... it was a win in our hearts. Well, that's all for now... till next time! (luckily I'm on winter break so till next time won't actually be that long!)
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