S'mores Cupcakes: The Best Food Mash-Up EVER.

Food mash-ups seem to be a pretty popular thing recently...like fruit pizzas, ice cream sandwich churros, or my personal favorite- Trader Joe's waffle butter cookies slathered in cookie butter. What's that? I couldn't hear you over the size of my waistline expanding. Anyway, I was truly surprised I hadn't heard of this spectacularly awesome thing known as S'mores cupcakes until my mom blew my mind and decided she was going to bake some so I had treats on the road. You wish your mom was my mom, but I'm not sharing. I also didn't share the cupcakes. Ate 'em before I even got to my sister's house. Long car trips are extremely boring, and since I was the driver I couldn't exactly take a nap to pass the time. Google, when you gonna make a car that drives itself? You spent years making those ridiculous Google Glasses that no one would ever be caught dead in instead of a self-driving car...really? Not a wonder my phone's preferred search engine is Bing...

Not a self-driving car, but still pretty friggin' spectacular.

My mom was in charge of the baking for this batch of cupcakes while I worked on the frosting. She questioned if I can't, shouldn't, or don't blog about baked good that come out of the box, but I totally can, should, and do. Considering most of my cakes are simple box cakes with several alterations made to make it not taste like a box cake but a day's worth of slaving in the kitchen, I find boxed cupcakes perfectly acceptable for human consumption (I save the fancy stuff for Hank and his pupcakes).

I mean, it says 'premium' right on the box...

So, we followed directions, but this recipe does take some careful paying attention to so that your layers turn out properly, and the box directions were kind of convoluted. I won't bore you with the ingredients list because not only can you buy these at your grocery store, but also do you have any idea how hard it is for me to wittily write out an ingredients/measuring list? I give it my all every week, and since I'm dealing with Clovistan breathing issues again, I just don't have it in me. I'm pretty sure the only thing in me right now is a gallon of snot and that Oreo I had a minute ago. I'm bad at snacking like an adult, don't judge me.

Start with your graham cracker crust, which you have previously mixed after reading the directions because I honestly can't do everything for you...who do you think you are? One of my students? Geesh. Anyway, these are made with a ton of love...which you all know really means "crapton of butter."

Then pour a small bit of the chocolate cupcake mix on top of your crust. I know we're not supposed to eat the batter, but c'mon, that looks so good. I've never died from eating batter or cookie dough with raw egg in it. So I say, go for it. But if I do somehow end up dying from eating raw batter, make sure to kinda brush that fact under the rug and say I went out in a blaze of glory trying out the self-driving car I made because Google can't get their crap together.

On top of the chocolate batter, squeeze a little of the marshmallow mix into each cupcake. The packet does come with the mix, but if you really like your marshmallows, I suppose you could add in more marshmallow fluff or top the cupcakes with a marshmallow when there is a few minutes of baking time left. Have I mentioned I really like marshmallows? Even just spelling the word marshmallows makes me happy. Nonsensical and fun, thanks marshmallows. Can we check with Guinness World Records and see if this is paragraph uses the word marshmallows in it more than any other written form? Marshmallows, marshmallows, marshmallows.

Finally, top with the remaining chocolate batter. Do you see the deliciousness left in that bowl? That could have been my dinner!!  Then plop these bad boys into the oven at whatever the hell temperature the box says for however the hell long the box says. Stupid box, always demanding we follow its instructions.

End result! Of course, if a cupcake doesn't have a frosted top, isn't it just a muffin?

Naturally, I had to frost those tasty little morsels. Baking is fun, but decorating is my bread and butter. Or is it my piping bag and frosting? Whatever. I have done the 1M-tip rose at least a kajillion times, and though it is pretty, I always kept wondering how the hell people got such peaked roses out of them when mine were always kinda flat. Turns out, they didn't. To get those beautiful peaked roses every stock photo uses, you need a completely different tip. Thanks for filling me in on that, internet. This is also somehow Google's fault.

You need the 2D tip to make that shizz extra fancy schmancy.

So fit your bag with a 2D tip to become the winner you know you were born to be. That's how I felt anyway, and I'm sorry if you don't feel the same way when you try this because it is exhilarating. OCD makes for really interesting personality traits, apparently. You follow the same motions as when using that old mimic-y 1M tip and start by piping a bit of frosting on the inside and slowly wrapping your way around until you reach the edge of the cupcake.

While the chocolate frosting does make it a bit harder to see, these are clearly very intricate roses compared to those done with the 1M tip. Clearly also very tasty.

I mean, really. This was so perfect I almost didn't want to eat it. Espresso brown roses should really be a thing. Not just the dead kind, but living ones.

But I totally did (as if you had your doubts). The frosting turned out awesome, but once unwrapped, the layers made these cupcakes just that much prettier to look at. From the graham cracker crust bottom to that utterly delectable marshmallow center, everything about these were just so damn right. I was happy to be able to bake with my mom one last time in that kitchen before I left and they move away. That kitchen is the kitchen dreams are made of..I mean, it is gorgeous, and there's actually enough space to probably store a few small ponies in there. Don't ask me why you'd have ponies in a kitchen because even as I wrote it I know that's totally not sanitary (could be fun, though), but it was the best example my snot-filled head could come up with.

My mother, cupcake maker and cupcake modeler extraordinaire.

Anyway, while the two cupcakes I took with me on the road were spectacular, the frosting kind of slid off of them in transport so I may or may not have been licking the inside of a small Tupperware to glean it all when I got to my hotel on Saturday night. Desperate times...

I am blogging from the comfort of my own living room now, back in hot NM. At least it isn't surface-of-the-sun hot like Denton was, so that's nice. You should never be sweating at 7 a.m. by just standing outside getting the dog to go to the bathroom. However, I was away from my house so long that birds had taken over my front door/porch and my poor, poor Freudrick the bear from Ruidoso had literally gotten his head covered in shit. I apologized to him profusely while spraying him down. I was also away from my hosue for so long that I forgot how nice it was. I felt like I was walking into a stranger's very well-decorated abode. Go me, with the good taste in food AND decor. Apparently I do not suffer much from modesty, though. While it is nice to be back in my own bed, I already miss the scenery of Michigan and spending time with my family. We put the fun in dysfunction.  

And we also take our land pirating very seriously.

I go back to real work on Monday (laaammmeeee allleeeerrrttt), so I am not sure when my next blog will be involving cakes, cupcakes, cookies, or yuppy puppy treats. But I can guarantee you that I will have plenty of stories to share with you that will leave you asking yourself, 'Wait, people can't possibly be THAT dense, can they?' Yes, yes they can. Like my previous students that didn't know the sinking of the Titanic was a real thing and not just Leonardo Dicaprio's breakout role into the hearts of tween girls everywhere. I was also once asked if we lived in the Middle East...we don't even live in the Middle Eastern part of the United States. I honestly question my own sanity and patience level at least seventy times during a regular work week. Til next time, my fellow eaters!