Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

OK...this is the first cupcake flavor I have done by request outside of family. The flavor? Mint Chocolate Chip!

I made up white cake mix & added 2 tablespoons of mint extract. I then added several drops of green food coloring. After I mixed that together, I added half a bag of mini chocolate chips. I just so happened to have these adorable green baking liners that I decided to use. I baked them up & they were smelling minty-delicious!

I then made up some creamy mint chocolate buttercream to top these little cuties off! Plus a few mini chocolate chips on top, too.
This request was also my first delivery, too! Super excited to hear how my buddy enjoyed his flavor. For the ones that stayed home...the family really enjoyed them! (Well, the ones who like mint, anyway.)

PB&J Cupcakes - Tweaked

I recently baked my PB&J cupcakes again, this time adding the strawberry filling, too, along with the grape jam filling I used before.

I also made a PB&J buttercream to go along with their respective flavors.

Next time...I may add a pie-like crust to the bottom, much like I used with the blackberry cobbler cupcakes!

It's so much fun tweaking & playing to make possible upgrades!

Oh, these were taken for a church potluck & then again for a church meeting. They were finished off & people were "smuggling" some home with them. I'd say they went over pretty well!

Blackberry Cobbler Cupcakes

Lately my kids have been having idea inspirations for cupcakes & my husband has been feeling left out. But he couldn't figure out what flavor he wanted.

Well it's Father's Day weekend & I wanted to find a flavor of cupcake just for him...but maybe one he wasn't expecting.

I dug into his childhood memories & remembered one of his favorite desserts: Blackberry Cobbler!

I rolled out, cut out & baked mini pie crusts in each baking liner, then added yellow cake batter on top of the baked crusts. I made room for filling to put the blackberries in. I also had my daughter help me cut out mini "leaves" from the rolled out crust remainder. I placed & arranged 3 leaves on the top of each cupcake before baking to be reminiscent of a pie/cobbler
While those were baking, I took fresh blackberries & began to make them into a syrup. Once the cupcakes were done & looking adorable, I spooned in about 3 berries into each center.

Now my hubby thinks that vanilla buttercream chilled tastes like vanilla icecream. I made a batch of vanilla buttercream & chilled it. With a melon baller, the chilled icing can be scooped & placed on top of a warm blackberry cobbler cupcake.

They are adorable & so yummy!! Happy Father's Day, honey!

Here he thought that I had planned carrot cake or pumpkin cake roll flavored cupcakes. He was pleasantly surprised!

Plus this is a perfect summer dessert, too!

M&M Cupcakes

My lil guy is getting creative with cupcakes too!

After being inspired with the banana cupcakes, he was really excited to do M&M cupcakes this time!

These are chocolate (devil's food) with mini M&M's inside. He then wanted to add chocolate icing on top & topped with more mini M&M's.

They were baked in liners that contained NO pink or purple! They are fun liners with a mod, geometric, circular pattern in blue, green, orange & white. Just perfect to hold an M&M cupcake!
The M&M's that were baked into the cupcakes acted as chocolate chips!

It's like you are eating a really big M&M!

Now my older kids are getting inspired too...be watching for upcoming cupcakes that they have been wanting!

Popcorn Cupcakes

When I made my cornbread cupcakes, it was to tide me over until I could try to make popcorn cupcakes! I wanted to do them ever since I found the red & white striped cupcake liners that made me think of a popcorn box. I have also seen some super cute popcorn decor for them online (which I used), but, if you haven't yet figured out, I have to go beyond that & make the cupcakes TASTE like popcorn, too! But how?

I used white cake mix & popped some salted popcorn. I then added margarine to it to help break it down a bit & give it a great buttery flavor. Then it went directly to the batter, handpicked to make sure no unpopped kernels made it into the cupcakes.

When those baked up, I made sure to use my filling "corks" to make way to fill the centers with a coconut buttercream. After I filled the popcorn cupcakes with the coconut buttercream, I spread a layer of it on top of each cake. This would be the "glue" for mini marshmallow topper. As I learned from other sites, you take the marshmallows & rip them in half; take 2-3 (3 works best) of the torn pieces, squish them together & it forms a "kernel". After each "kernel" was formed, I placed them all over the top of each cupcake, making sure to secure them to the icing. When the top of the cupcake was covered (about 15 "kernels" per cake), I had to take it a step further...I sprayed the tops with butter-flavored cooking spray.

It took 2 hours to arrange the tops of 24 cupcakes, but it did look like movie popcorn!

Not only to they look like a tub of movie popcorn, but it has a really great taste that isn't too sweet & isn't too over-the-top. I used the coconut in the buttercream to be reminiscent of the movie days of using coconut oil to pop the corn. YUM!

However, since there is actual popcorn in it...keep some floss around...you still get the fun pieces stuck in your teeth.