S'more cupcakes - Part II Cupcake

My goal for this cupcake was to be as like a s'more as possible. I wanted all 3 elements (chocolate, graham & marshmallow) to exist individually and combine in your mouth like they would in the real thing. Most of the recipes I found, however, were chocolate graham cupcakes which tasted more like a chocolate cupcake with a very slight hint of graham. Like the marshmallow frosting (see previous post) I ended up making 3 different recipes until I came to the one I liked.





The first was a recipe I found for vanilla graham cupcakes with chocolate pudding. It wasn't what I wanted since it had chocolate mixed in, but I thought it would be so moist that it was worth trying. Once I had started making it, I realized the pudding was added AFTER the cupcakes were done! Basically, you made cupcakes, cut them in half, and inserted a pudding center. I definitely didn't want to do that, so I mixed in chocolate chips instead. Well, they didn't rise much and came out pretty dry. By the next day, you could have used them as a hockey puck!

The next recipe was from a famous bakery known for fun cupcake flavors, including s'mores. It also had the chocolate mixed in (as cocoa powder). This was definitely more of a "cakey" flavor but you could barely tell the graham was in there.

The final (and winning!) recipe was basically a recipe I made up using a little bit of each previous recipe. I definitely liked having chips versus cocoa powder to keep the chocolate and graham flavors more separate. I added an egg yolk to make it more moist since the graham crumbs are pretty dry. The overall flavor actually resembled a chocolate chip cookie so you could call it that too if you wanted I guess!

Here is the recipe. Keep in mind, I made this up as I went so if yours doesn't turn out how you want, you might need to tweak it a little!

Graham & chocolate cupcakes

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 whole egg & 1 yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup graham crumbs
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 bag choc chips (I used mini chips)

In a small bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, yolk and vanilla. Combine the flour, graham, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Graham tends to be clumpy so be sure to mix well.

Bake at 375° for 12-15 minutes until browned on top. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Makes about 30 cupcakes.