Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Earth Day Cupcakes!

Happy Earth Day!
Nobody loves the Earth more than a bunch of worms digging around in it, plus I didn't have the time or inclination to make tiny world cupcakes:-)

These were tasty. Exceptionally tasty in my opinion. I don't usually go for Chocolate Overload desserts, but man, these were delicious. And I don't often think that. The chocolate cake was fairly moist and the icing turned out with a really deep chocolate flavor closer to dark chocolate than anything else. Woo. Dark chocolate.






Dirt cupcakes (with worms!)
Martha's One-Bowl Chocolate Cake Recipe
via The Bumbling Baker
2 1/2 cups ap flour
1 1/4 cups cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 tsps baking soda
1 1/4 tsps baking powder
1 1/4 tsps salt
2 large eggs plus 1 large yolk
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tbs. vegetable oil
1 1/4 tsps vanilla
1 1/4 cups warm water

Preheat the oven to 350.
Sift together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add all the egg (including the extra yolk), milk, oil, vanilla and water, and beat with an electric mixer on low until smooth and combined. (2-3 minutes)
Line and fill muffin tin. Cups should be about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-22 minutes.
The estimated yield is 24 cupcakes. I ended up with 2/4 cupcakes and a 9" round cake.




Chocolate Buttercream
1/2 cup butter @ room temp.
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
3-5 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla

Blend butter and cocoa on low until well combined. Add confectioners' sugar, 3 tbs milk and the vanilla. Blend on low until incorporated and then switch to medium until fluffy. Add additional milk a tbs at a time if too stiff.
(This recipe would be perfect for a dozen, but double it if you are making the full 2 dozen as I did.)

Crush 15-20 oreos. I used a mix of regular and golden for a little more color in my dirt. I also crushed mine with the food processor, but it is easily done with a ziploc bag and any some hand crushing action.

Ice the cooled cupcakes. (It doesn't need to be pretty, you are covering it up anyway.) Then roll icing in the oreo mix making sure to coat everything so you don't have any mud showing.

Now you could just put the worms on top, but I used a wooden spoon to shove the worms inside the cupcake like they were going in or coming out of the ground. I"ve seen people cut the worms in half and shove them into the icing to get a similar affect as well.




5 comments:

Sara said...

i loved the earth day cupcakes. they were awesome, and i am not a big chocolate eater.

your earthworm talking kind of reminds me of i can has cheezburger. just a thought.

Jillian said...

Oh my, these look super tasty! I love the worms sticking out!

Robin said...

Very tasty... it was everything I could do to resist scooping the dirt up and eating it before she topped the cupcakes! :-) Very moist, tasty.

Norbert Schafer said...

so cute!

but how did you get the worms like stuck in there without melting or destroying the cupcake?

also, you should also start posting the time it took you to bake the goods. some of these like those strawberry lemon tarts look like they take forever!

Xian said...

Laura, "Now you could just put the worms on top, but I used a wooden spoon to shove the worms inside the cupcake like they were going in or coming out of the ground. I"ve seen people cut the worms in half and shove them into the icing to get a similar affect as well."

They were added post baking, icing and dirtifying.

You are going to be visiting soon. Woo!