MSC Smores Cupcakes by Monica

It's my favorite time of the month. This month the cupcake was chosen by Mary Ann from Meet Me in the Kitchen blog. You can find this recipe on page 151 of Martha Stewart Cupcakes.

Today I am also featuring my beautiful sister Erica (Her post is right under mine). It is her birthday today. She is now co-authoring this blog and you will be seeing some changes. I'm feeling a little limited because of the name of my blog so I will most likely be changing the name. I guess I'm a little sick of just making cupcakes. I'm sure my family is getting sick of them too. I just feel like I want to branch out more.

My sister and I both have a love of baking and cooking. We learned most of what we know from our wonderful Grandmother and our dear Auntie Linda. Both taught us what they knew and both fabulous cooks in their kitchens. Erica is also a wonderful cook. I am so glad to be sharing this with her. We would like to own a shop of our own someday. *Sigh* Someday. We can all dream, right?

Okay, back to the cupcake. Now there is a lot of controversy with Martha's Cupcakes so far. Some love them and some hate them. I am finding that I love parts of some of the cupcakes and I'm not too fond of other parts. This one is no exception. I love love love the topping. It is topped with a chocolate ganache and then a marshmallow frosting. I did not do the marshmallow recipe from the book I followed this one from her website. I was very happy with it. It was finished off with a toasting from my lovely kitchen torch for a toasted effect. (Thanks again Em!) Overall, perfect topping. Loved it.

I know I totally skipped the whole cupcake and went straight for the frosting. That is because I did not love the cupcake. In my opinion it was a total flop. It has been said before by my fellow MSC club members of the density of some of these cupcakes and I've only somewhat agreed. But these were so dense you could probably use them as hockey pucks, or at least a paper weight.

I used Graham flour found in the health food section of the grocery store. It was coarse so I had reservations from the beginning. I do get the effect they were trying to get. I was excited to put honey in, I mean use can't have a graham cracker effect without the honey. After I mixed the dry with the wet ingredients I knew these were going to be trouble. The batter was really really thick. Did anyone else think so? They were hard to handle and I had to use a rubber spatula to actually spread them in the cupcake wrapper. NOT a good thing. The book said to bake at 350 for 25 minutes. I checked at 20 minutes and they were already over done. Bummer. This left them dry with crispy edges. They had somewhat of a good flavor but were a bit gritty from the graham flour.

Oh well, I always give my cupcakes away with a disclaimer. Ha. I may try a Smores Cupcake again using the same topping but definately a different cupcake. Maybe these? Hmmm....we'll see.

Keep reading for Erica's first time review and experience with this doozie. :)

MSC Smore Cupcakes by Erica

Hi!  I'm Erica.  Monica's bratty little sis!  :o)  I'm very excited to be featured in her blog.  I love and am impressed with every single thing she creates.  She is very talented, so have mercy on me, because I am not quite a pro like my sister yet.  And i'm just learning how to use the lighting in my house to take great pictures.  Monica has taught me a lot. 

So...I made the cupcake this month and I was not very impressed with it.  I followed the directions exactly, and the end result looks NOTHING like Martha's cupcake.  *lol*  The cupcake batter was so thick and then when I tried a cupcake before frosting it was really gritty.  Which I'm sure is from the graham flour.  The taste was pretty good, but again...gritty. Almost like a corn bread. :o)  Also, when I got done baking them...they ALL had a hollow center.  They all sunk!  I was about ready to throw the towel in, but I kept going.

Onto the ganache...ask my sister...i'm not a big fan of semi-sweet chocolate.  Give me a milk chocolate candy bar and i'll scarf it down, but dark...ewwww...too tart?  What is it?  So I was not a fan of the ganache either.  Maybe if it was made with milk chocolate I would LOVE it.  It was sure pretty though how it was all shiny and smooth.  And then the way it dripped off the cupcake.  Looked like heaven, but didn't quite taste like it.

The marshmallow stuff was pretty easy to make, but it never got the thick consistency like it said it would.  I still have a cupcake on the counter and the marshmallow is still sticky and soft.  My peaks looked nothing like the picture, but I think it was too runny or the hole in the center of my cupcake had something to do with it.  I think my favorite part of the whole process was when I got to brown the marshmallow.  I don't have a fancy shmancy torch thingamajig, so I went out to the garage and grabbed my husbands giant propane torch!  I didn't even burn the house down.

All and all this was a fun project.  I enjoy creating things and seeing how they turn out.  I can't wait to be featured more in our sisterly blog.