This One Is For The Kids

For the past 2 months the ingredient for Cupcake Hero has been of the adult nature and my darling daughter has been left out in the cold not able to enjoy my cupcakes. So this month it is all about Stasia!!! Her favorite foods are simple; she is not really into all of the ultra “gourmet” foods. She likes her hamburgers with ketchup and pickles only. Her sandwiches peanut butter and jelly. Her burritos beans and rice only…. No cheese, no sauce, no onions, no meat….. NO Maa’m not for her! Anyways you get the point. These cupcakes will not be containing items such as rosewater, saffron, or ginger. I am taking it old school for this month’s entry… no frills just down and dirty kid friendly yummy goodness!

Her FAVORITE ice cream is Rocky Road; she could eat it every single day if I would let her. So I thought that I would make for her a Rocky Road Cupcake Sunday. I wanted a rich creamy chocolate flavor cake, so creamy that you would almost forget it is a cupcake. And of course…. Has to have soft creamy marshmallow. I have to admit, this is one of my FAVORITE creations. She absolutely LOVED it… as did I. Husband and I took these to work and both got RAVE reviews. Everyone loved how they looked like an ice cream cone Sunday! I even gave one to my boss’ boss…. So they better be good or I stand a good chance of being fired – LOL

Makes 18 cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcake

• 18 cake ice cream cones
• ½ cup buttermilk
• ½ cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 2.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• ¼ cup chopped almonds
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325°F. In a Pyrex bowl over steam continuously stirring melt chocolate and butter till smooth. Take off of the heat and add baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and sugar and stir together. Add buttermilk and stir smooth, then add flour and water and stir till smooth. Fold in chopped almonds. Fill ice cream cones about ½ ways full. Place on a baking sheet standing up and bake for about 15 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

*Helpful tip: scratch the bottom seam of your ice cream flat cone so that it will stay standing and not want to tip over. Also, do not over fill your ice cream cone or else when the batter flows over it tips the whole thing and then your cones go down like dominos.

Marshmallow Topping

• ½ tablespoon unflavored gelatin
• ½ cup water
• ½ cup light corn syrup
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup chopped almonds
• 1 cup of melting chocolate

In an electric mixing bowl fitted with a whisk add gelatin and ¼ water and let sit for at least 5 minutes. In heavy sauce pan mix ½ cup water, sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla on medium low heat, heat till 244°F without stirring. Remove from heat and slowly pour into mixing bowl while on LOW speed. Gradually …. Very gradually or else you will make a big ole mess… move up to high speed. Let it whip till it triples in volume, around 15 minutes. Fold in chopped almonds. Let stand for 5 minutes. With an ice cream scoop; place 1 scoop on top of each cupcake. My ice cream scoop mysteriously had disappeared and I had to use a spoon (I tried a piping bag and that didn’t work out). It is ok, I actually think that it looks more Yummy kinda sloppy!

Melt some chocolate in a double broiler and dip each cone and finish off with sprinkles.

THEN I GOT TO THINKING….. Since I am taking it old school may as well go FULL FORCE; all the way back to the days of MY childhood. My favorite snack when I was a kid was Hostess SnoBall. I LOVED LOVED LOVED to peel off the marshmallow top and roll it up and shove it all in my mouth at once. Then enjoy the cupcake with a tall glass of milk.

Makes 15 Chocolate Cupcake

Chocolate Cupcake

• ½ cup buttermilk
• ½ cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 2.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325°F. In a Pyrex bowl over steam continuously stirring melt chocolate and butter till smooth. Take off of the heat and add baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and sugar and stir together. Add buttermilk and stir smooth, then add flour and water and stir till smooth. Fill cupcake cups 1/3 of the way and bake for approximately 15 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Marshmallow Topping

• ½ tablespoon unflavored gelatin
• ½ cup water
• ½ cup light corn syrup
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 large bag of shredded sweetened coconut
• Pink gel food color

In an electric mixing bowl fitted with a whisk add gelatin and ¼ water and let sit for at least 5 minutes. In heavy sauce pan mix ½ cup water, sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla on medium low heat, heat till 244°F without stirring. Remove from heat and slowly pour into mixing bowl while on LOW speed. Gradually …. Very gradually or else you will make a big ole mess… move up to high speed. Let it whip till it triples in volume, around 15 minutes.

With a 1 inch round cookie cutter, carve out a hole into your cupcakes.

Using a piping bag filled with marshmallow fill your whole. Cut the top off of your cupcake core and use and place on top filling the hole (kind of like a cork).

Place coconut into a bowl and add a few drops of pink food color. Toss with your hands until you have a nice even coloring. In a small bowl fill with marshmallow goo and add a few tablespoons of water to thin out. If you don’t it will be too hard to dip your cupcake into. Staying true to the SnoBall form it is a thick marshmallow coating. Therefore I dipped each cupcake 3 times. I gave each cupcake 1 coat and rotated back around till I had 3 coats giving each layer time to set a bit.

On the third coat immediately place cupcake upside down in coconut; be sure to cover all of the marshmallow with coconut.

I then took a pretty cupcake cup (because the original cup got all icky with marshmallow goop) and placed it on, turned my cupcake right side up and shaped it firmly with the palms of my hands to get a nice round shape. And viola! You have a SnoBall!!! AND I LOVE IT!!!