S'mores Cupcakes

Well, helloooooooo summer love.

To me, summer means a few things.  I am unfortunately not a kid anymore so summers off is not one of them.  But summer does mean the days are longer, the colors seem brighter, and I seem to be able to eat my body weight in fresh watermelon and cantaloupe.  Summer also screams for the classic combination of chocolate, graham cracker and marshmallow.  I've been looking for the perfect s'mores cupcake recipe for awhile now, but I couldn't find anything that fit my vision.  Most of the recipes I found had a chocolate cake base with a marshmallow frosting, and the graham sort of took a backseat with either a little square on top or some crumbs as the base.  Finally, I decided to take bits and pieces of other recipes to create my perfect Frankenstein s'mores cupcake.  These babies have a dense graham cracker cake, a milk chocolate filling, and a rich and fluffy marshmallow buttercream.  I rolled the outside in extra graham cracker crumbs and garnished with some chocolate pieces, mini marshmallows, a chocolate covered-graham cracker and a drizzle of ganache.  Ohmygoodness.  It's pretty safe to say these didn't make it two full days in our house.  They did, however, make it into my top 3 cupcake recipes of all time.  Allow me to introduce you to your new summer love (a la Justin Timberlake circa 2006).

S'mores Cupcakes:
Makes 12 cupcakes

Graham Cracker Cupcake (source: Vanilla Garlic)
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash salt
1 cup milk

Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until creamy.  Add the sugar and beat for 2-3 minutes until fluffy and light in color.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each addition.  Set aside.  In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Add about one third of the graham cracker mixture to the butter mixture and combine.  Add 1/2 of the milk.  Add the second third of the dry ingredients, the remaining 1/2 of the milk and the last of the dry ingredients, combining after each addition until just combined.  Evenly divide into liners and bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Milk Chocolate Filling
2.5 ounces milk chocolate
1/4 cup heavy cream

Melt milk chocolate and heavy cream in a microwave at 30 second intervals on 50% power.  Stir.  Repeat process if not melted.  Whisk until smooth.  Chill in the refrigerator until cupcakes are ready to be filled, but don't cool for longer than 30 minutes.  When cupcakes are cool, cut a cone shaped hole in each cupcake and spoon or pipe filling into each hole.

Marshmallow Buttercream (source:  How Sweet Eats)
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff
3 cups powdered sugar

Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until creamy.  Add in fluff and beat for 2-3 minutes, then add in vanilla extract.  With the mixer on low speed, add in powdered sugar one cup at a time until fully incorporated.  Once all the sugar has been added, beat on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes.  If mixture if too runny, add a bit more sugar.  If it's too thick, add a bit of milk one tablespoon at a time.  Frost cupcakes and garnish as desired.