Well, we've finally made it into the last round of Holiday Eating 2021. I'm not huge into Christmas...the music is deplorable, most of the movies are too mushy (except for Die Hard, the best Christmas movie), and well, minus a strange man coming down the chimney at night to leave gifts, there is literally nothing spooky about it. As a lover of all things Halloween, you can see why I think Christmas has its shortcomings--save for the desserts. For some reason, during the month of December, it is appropriate to eat dessert at every single meal of the day, and I am so here for it. So yeah, I'm a little crabby and flabby during Christmas, much like my single favorite Christmas icon, the Grinch. I figured making a Grinch-based Christmas dessert was the closest I was gonna get to creepy Halloween-adjacent bake, so I went for it.
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He may be a mean one, but he is definitely a green one.
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Yep, they're terrifying and so, so very angry, and to me, this is perfect. To be fair, the Grinch didn't really hate Christmas, he hated people, and after nearly two years in a pandemic, I'm thinking he made some valid points. I must say though, he makes an absolutely delicious dessert. These pistachio cupcakes are so moist, light, and fluffy thanks to the secret ingredient, and the cream cheese frosting is the right amount of sweet (think a happy medium between Cindy Lou Who and the Grinch). I love a good green dessert, and to boot, these cupcakes are only 188 calories a piece. Sleigh what??
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Still trying to find a decent GF Whole Foods cake mix replacement...
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I'm gr-inching along over here, trying my best to make a cupcake that won't kill me, still tastes edible, and lacks all forms of gluten, and I think I may have found a suitable replacement for my Whole Foods GF cake mix. It's perfect because it only makes a dozen cupcakes, and truly, with the alarming rate I inhale dessert, I don't need more than 12 cupcakes waiting to meet their demise via my sweet tooth. As the Grinch aptly said himself, "Am I just eating because I'm bored?" To make these phenomenal pistachio cupcakes, you need:
- 1 bag of Birch Benders GF yellow cupcake mix or half a box of yellow cake mix if not gluten free
- 1 box of sugar free Jell-o pistachio pudding mix (this is the probably not-so-secret ingredient)
- 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce
- 3/4 cup of milk
- 1/2 cup of egg whites or 3 large eggs
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
With the addition of the pistachio pudding, this recipe needed more liquid than what the Birch Benders recipe called for, just FYI! So don't follow along with the recipe on the back of the bag. Preheat your oven to 350, line a muffin tin with seasonally-appropriate cupcake wrappers, and dump all your ingredients in a stand mixer. Mix on low for 30 seconds before turning to medium-high and mixing another 90 seconds.
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Just wait, they get greener.
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I used a cookie scoop to place one and a half spoonfuls of batter into each liner. I gently swirled each cup with the back of the spoon to even out. The batter is quite thick with the pudding mix in it, so tapping the counter to even out doesn't really work here. I baked for 24 minutes at 350, until a toothpick came out mostly clean and my tops were starting to get just a tiny bit golden.
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I didn't want to burn them, but they need a couple extra minutes to firm up.
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Now, I recommend leaving the cupcakes in the tin for 10 minutes to cool once you're done baking. This way you don't burn your fingerprints off, unless you're looking to commit a little light holiday larceny like our pal the Grinch. Once cooled a bit, remove from the tray, place the cupcakes on a cooling rack, and shove this in the freezer to cool completely while you make the frosting.
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Why is it so hard to find plain M&M's??
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I went through it trying to find plain M&M's...everything was holiday themed green and red or not a plain M&M, whose size I needed for Grinch eyes. I was also trying to find Reese's Pieces instead since I just needed small yellow circles for eyes, but I could not find anything smaller than a 5 lb. bag, and I can't be trusted around a 5 lb. bag of chocolate peanut butter candy (that is a level of self control I'm very aware I don't have). I skipped that and went to the checkout in hopes of finding a plain bag of M&M's...behold, a Christmas miracle! Granted the only color I needed was the least populated in the bag, I was definitely feeling Grinchy after this. I will say the hardest part of making the frosting is simply finding plain M&Ms in a reasonably-sized bag (share size it says, as if I would)... For the cream cheese frosting you need:
- 8 ounces of 1/3 the fat cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup (226 g) fat free vanilla Greek yogurt, strained overnight
- 2.5 cups of Lakanto powdered monkfruit
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 12 yellow M&M's
- Gel dyes in red, lime, and black
- Star sprinkles and white sanding sugar for Whoville Christmas trees
- Piping tips: #12 round, #21 open star, #2 round, #32 open star, and #233 grass tips
Mix the cream cheese and yogurt until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the monkfruit and extracts, mixing on low first, the whipping on medium-high until everything has come together. Take a tiny amount of frosting (less than what I have pictured below), set in a bowl, and dye black; place this in a piping bag with a #2 tip. Load a piping bag with a #21 open star tip with plain white frosting, and then divide up your remaining frosting so that you have A LOT in one bowl to dye green, and a smaller amount to dye red. I dyed too much of my frosting red and didn't have enough green, so I could only make 6 Grinch cupcakes. I would've made all dozen Grinches, but my fallback plan was Whoville Christmas trees since I had plenty of white and a smidge of green. Try as I might, I can never get the frosting amounts right when I bake.
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My least favorite part of baking is dying frosting."Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, double hate, loathe entirely." The Grinch and I have a lot in common it seems...
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Put your green frosting into a bag with a #12 round tip, and have the grass tip handy to switch over to. The red frosting also needs a #12 round tip. Take your completely cooled cupcakes, and make a large, tall mound of frosting with the green bag. Doesn't need to look pretty, it'll get covered with hair.
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Not actual hair, mind you. Unless you have dogs. Then, good luck.
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Once I had a little mountain of green frosting, I switched to my grass tip and drew hair all over by simply piping a line of frosting at the top, then working my way down in two more layers, and repeating all over. It definitely doesn't need to look perfect or pretty. The Grinch was not known for his dashing good looks and perfectly coiffed hair.
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Yep, this looks exactly like ketchup.
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Now, grab the red frosting and draw small loops to build up a Santa hat on top of his head.
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Now we've added mayonnaise.
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Then take your white bag of frosting and give the Santa hat a little star trim and one on top.
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He is somehow staring into my soul with nary a pupil.
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Then take a yellow M&M, cutting in half gently with a sharp knife. Place this on the front of his face, and give him very angry eyebrows and tiny, soulless pupils with the black frosting.
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You might regret it once you've done this though. It kinda feels like you've got a kitchen full of tiny serial killers looking at you...or at the very least, the world's most judgemental cupcakes.
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On the upside, these are so angry that they're a perfect likeness of the Grinch. And if you only do half of your dozen this way, you can make some very cute little snowy Whoville trees to try to temper all that tiny green rage.
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Because you always, always need something with sprinkles.
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I piped a large blob of white frosting on my other 6 cupcakes, smoothing out with an angled spatula. Then I dumped plain sanding sugar in a bowl, and one at a time, gently placed the cupcakes face down in the sprinkles, swirling around the bowl.
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So sparkly!
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Then I swapped to my #32 piping tip on the remainder of my green frosting. The trees are very easy to make. Just pipe one larger mound, pushing down before pulling away, then pipe a smaller mound on top of that, pushing down before pulling away, and then one tiny little mound on top, where you simply pipe then pull away to make a point. Then add whatever whimsy you fancy to finish your Whoville Christmas trees. Could be funky glitter, little stars, round sprinkles for ornaments, you name it, it'll work, because those Whovilles were wild with style.
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These are so cute I can't stand it. "Help me...I'm feeling."
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Starting to feel like
How the Grinch Stole Christmas was maybe also meant to be my autobiography?
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Because my heart (and waistline) grow three sizes every time I look at these adorable cupcakes.
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This kinda brings a whole new meaning to the "He sees you when you're sleeping, and knows when you're awake" bit. I swear, his eyes follow you around the room.
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So these "definitely before he reformed" pistachio Grinch cupcakes are a tad bit terrifying and yet somehow seasonally appropriate because red + green = CHRISTMAS! I can't stress enough how amazing these are...I'm definitely sad there's only a dozen of them because that pistachio flavor is so, so right. The cupcakes are so fluffy and light that you definitely could eat them by the dozen, and the cream cheese frosting is 110% the icing on the (cup)cake to make these sheer holiday perfection. I know, it's not gingerbread or peppermint, but it's green, so I count pistachio as a Christmas flavor. Trust me,
yule be sorry if you don't make a batch to eat, enjoy, and terrorize your children with. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fight over that last cupcake. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!
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Do you eat the Grinch cupcakes, or do the Grinch cupcakes eat you? It's a thinker.
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