S'mores cupcakes

S'mores cupcakes. Or, oh-em-gee cupcakes. Or, better yet, I-love-you-so-much-I-made-you-these-ridiculously-yummy-but-time-consuming cupcakes. Yeah, that last one.

I don't think a dessert has ever frustrated me more. Fairly simple ingredients. But: uses a lot of bowls and such, have to make two batters, they take a really long time to prepare, and they're so difficult to get out of the pan (if you mess it up like I did) that I had only one pan out of three survive.

But they're soooooo good. Even my father, who hates cupcakes (insane, I know, right?) loved these. LOVED them.

So, if you have the time, I recommend making them. I mean, they're worth it. And it probably wasn't that bad, I just messed up five million times.

Mess-up #1: While adding the milk to the batters, I accidentally added all of the milk to the chocolate batter, instead of half in each. Which lead to a very liquidy batter. So, I just put it in a cake pan and cooked it. BAD IDEA. It was the densest, chewiest cake I've ever made. I guess in my frustrated mind, I figured batter + cake pan = cake. Nope. Not so.

(Ew. Do not try this.)

Mess-up #2: I did not inspect my pantry well, which meant that I bought a thing of chocolate chips and a bottle of vanilla because I saw we didn't have enough, while, in fat, we had the largest bottle of vanilla I've ever seen and more chocolate chips than imaginable at the bottom of a basket in our pantry. And then I ran out of cupcake liners. Yeah, the grocery store saw me a lot that day.

Mess-up #3: I overfilled many of the cupcake tins, and did not expect them to rise as much as they did, which lead to ruining half the batch.

(See?)

Mess-up #4: I did not ice these until a day after I made them (mostly because I was so aggravated about the whole ordeal), so the only photos I was able to take were pre-iced cupcakes, because once they were iced, they were gone in about five seconds.

S'more cupcakes with chocolate ganache icing (adapted from Bakerella)

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 cups cocoa
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 cups milk
4 eggs
4 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup oil
Bag of mini-marshmallows or bag of jumbo marshmallows, cut in half

Graham Cracker Crumb topping
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup butter, melted

Ganache
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda together with a wire whisk.
Separate the mixture in half into two bowls.

Stir cocoa into one bowl and the graham cracker crumbs into the other.
Add 1 cup milk, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla and 1/2 cup oil to the cocoa mixture and beat on medium until combined.
Repeat adding the same ingredients to the graham cracker crumb flour mixture.

Prepare the graham cracker crumb topping.
Add the brown sugar and crumbs in a small bowl and pour on the melted butter. Stir until combined.

Pour a little graham cracker cake batter into the bottom of your baking cups (you need like the size of a quarter. This rises a lot. But then again, it depends on the ratio of graham-to-chocolate you want. For mine, I did just a little dollop in the bottom) and then sprinkle the topping mixture lightly on the surface.
Place a marshmallow half on top (or about 3-4 mini marshmallows) and then cover the marshmallow(s) with the chocolate cake batter until it is about 3/4 full. (Remember: this rises. A LOT.)
Sprinkle with more topping mixture.

Bake cupcakes for about 15 minutes.

Let cool and top with ganache.

Heat the butter and cream on the stove. Heat until just before it boils. Remove and pour over chocolate. Stir until completely melted and smooth.
Pour over cupcakes and add more marshmallows if you desire.

This makes about 24-36 cupcakes.

(Hello, grainy photo taken at midnight.)