Smores!

There is nothing better for a summer evening than toasting smores over the fire. Since there happens to be a fire ban on in my area smores on the stick were out of the question, but smore cupcakes? Yep those would satisfy my craving! The recipe is from the Martha Stewart website. (I adore martha's recipes, they always work perfectly!)

The first step is making the chocolate cake batter.

This batter tasted so good! I could hardly keep out of it!

Then, the graham crackers were crushed (a good way to relieve some stress of the work week!) and mixed with the butter and a quarter cup of sugar.

I was watching Julie and Julia while making these cupcakes, Julie proclaims her love for butter many times during the movie and I have to say that I agree with her!

A tablespoon of the graham cracker mixture was put in the cupcakes lines and pressed down with a small glass.

Next the chocolate was chopped and added to the bottom of the cups as well. I used bittersweet chocolate because my friends are always complaining that my cupcakes are too sweet. Personally I like sweet! But the bittersweet chocolate complimented the frosting very well.

The graham cracker/chocolate bits were baked for 5 minutes and then the cupcake batter was added. The remaining graham crackers and chocolate were sprinkled on top of the cupcakes before they are baked.

These even look good before they are baked! They baked in the oven at 350 for about 25 minutes.

While they were baking I started to make the marshmallow frosting! Yum. I love marshmallow frosting!

The frosting was fairly simple to make, the egg-whites and sugar were whisked away on the stove for 5 minutes. Then beat in the mixmaster for about 9 minutes, starting on low speed and slowing working up to high. And then the cupcakes were done!

Yum, they look so delicious! They are pretty enough without topping, but what kind of smores don't have marshmallows?

The topping looks amazing just in the bowl. I love the stark white whipped topping. It looks so fresh.

Its very similar to a meringue but it isn't baked. Its more of a marshmallow puff frosting. Come to think of it the marshmallow fluff you cant get would probably work just as well. I put the frosting in a piping bag with a large star tip. I then pipped the frosting onto the top of the cupcakes! While 'sampling' a large amount of the frosting.

Oh my god. These turned out looking so good. I love the little bit of graham cracker on the tops of the cupcakes. Yum. But no-one eats smores with a regular un-toasted marshmallow....

Mmm. Much better! I don't have a creme brulee torch so I used a barbeque lighter. It worked well but it took awhile. The cupcakes turned out just like Martha's. Yay! I love them they tasted great, weren't to sweet and had a nice layered look when you bit into them. Yum!

Here are a couple more Smore shots...