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. :)