S’Mores Cupcakes

A few years ago, after working at a very good restaurant for an extremely talented chef who made me cry every day for 8 months, I took a hiatus from cooking. To pay the bills I took a job as a hostess for a summer. The catch was that they promised me full time work and only gave me two shifts a week, which would have been way more manageable except that then I got dumped. And that would have been easier if I had lived in the city for longer and had more friends but I didn`t. And so I spent my days applying for jobs and not getting the jobs I`d applied for and crying, and feeling rejected and just generally having a really rough go. And so everyday I woke up and made cupcakes. Everyday. Compusively. I made blueberry cupcakes, raspberry caramel cupcakes, dolce de leche cupcakes, maple pecan cupcakes. I made an insane amount of cupcakes. I gave them to people at work (which might be why they ended up giving me more shifts) and I gave them to my one good friend (who obliging took them everyday, even though shes very food concious) occasionally I gave them to boys I went on dates on, but they were rarely worth it. Fortunately that phase is through and my life has sorted itself out and I have since decided I am over cupcakes. I am cupcaked out. But today I had to go to a beach party and bring dessert, and I realized why people started making cupcakes in the first place. It`s cake, that doesn`t involve cutlery, or plates. And then I realized there was one kind of cupcake I`d never made before. S`mores cupcakes. I`m telling you, you really ought to make these. Yes there are multiple steps and yes it`s a little time consuming, but really. It`s S`mores cupcakes. You know you`re going to.

Graham Cracker Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 15 crackers)

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp Baking Powder

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1/2 cup Butter, softened

3/4 cup Milk or Buttermilk

Ganache:

3/4 cup Milk Chocolate

2/3 cup Heavy Cream

Marshmallow Topping:

3 Large Egg Whites

2 tbsp Sugar

1/2 cup Water

1/2 cup Corn Syrup

3/4 cup Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

To make Ganache

Bring the cream to a boil

Pour on top of chocolate

Stir until smooth (sorry! i forgot to take a picture of this step!)

To Bake Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350F

Line with cupcake liners or butter and flour 1 dozen cupcake tins, or 3 dozen mini cupcake tins.

Whisk together your dry ingredients

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition.

Alternate in the dry ingredients and wet ingredients beginning and ending with the dry.

Spoon the batter 3/4 of the way up the cupcake liners.

And bake them until they’re beautiful and slighly browned and an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 15 minutes for mini cupcakes.

To Make Marshmallo Topping

Put 3/4 cup sugar, corn syrup, and water in a pot over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove spoon and bring to a boil and with a candy thermometer let it comet ot he firm ball stage, 246Degrees F.

While it’s boiling put the egg whites and the vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk on high speed until soft peaks form. Add in the 2 tablespoons of sugar slowly until stiff peaks form.

When the sugar is up to temperature slowly pour it into the whites while whisking on high speed. Keep whisking until the bowl is cool and the meringue looks very marshmallowy! Put into a piping bag right away.

To Assemble:

Crank up the oven to 425F

With a pairing knife cut a little hole out of the middle of the cupcakes.

Put the ganache into a piping bag and pipe it into the holes in the cupcakes (the consensus was that there wasn’t enough chocolate in the ones I made so don’t hesitate to load em up!)

Pipe the marshmallow topping on top of the whole thing!

Now throw the whole things in the oven for a couple minutes until the tops just get golden. If you leave them to long they will not only burn but shrivel up a bit as the night goes on, so don’t worry about leaving them fair.