S’mores Cupcakes

Happy Father’s Day! My dad is no longer with us, and now that I think about it, he never took me camping. But camping seems like fatherly pursuit, and if you camp, you’ve got to have s’mores.

This recipe combines a cupcake base I found at Life Love and Sugar and a frosting recipe I’d used in the past, plus some Hershey’s and graham cracker pieces. A word of caution about the cupcake batter: it is literal liquid, and therefore difficult to transfer from your bowl to your cupcake tins. I used a two-inch cookie scoop for that, but next time I’ll probably transfer my batter to a measuring cup and pour. Another note for next time: the original recipe called for adding 1 1/2 tablespoons of graham cracker mixture for the base, but I think it needs more. I’ve adjusted the instructions below to what I think it should be ratio-wise – at least two tablespoons. We’ll see how it goes next time.

Ingredients

For the graham cracker base

• 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs*
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted
• 5 tablespoons sugar

For the cupcakes

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting and decoration

• 12 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 7-ounce jar marshmallow fluff
• 18 Hershey’s pieces
• 1/2 graham cracker, broken into pieces

*This means about 8 – 9 rectangles. You can process them in a food processor or put them in a zip-top bag and beat them with a rolling pin, which is what I did and is much more fun.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line cupcake tins with paper liners. The original cupcake recipe said it makes 15 – 18 cupcakes, but I had some batter left over so I think it could make about 22 if you adjusted the graham cracker base. Anyway, start with 18 liners.

Make the crust: In a medium bowl stir together graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, and sugar. Place about 2 tablespoons of mixture into each cupcake well and press down – I used my tart tamper (yes, that is an actual piece of baking equipment) but you can just use your fingers or the back of a spoon. Bake crust for 7 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees.

While crust is baking, make the cupcake batter: combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add egg, buttermilk, and vegetable oil and mix to combine, then add boiling water and vanilla and stir to combine completely. The batter will be literal liquid.

Using a two-inch cookie scoop or other less messy transfer vessel, fill cupcake wells about half full with batter. Bake for 17 – 20 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and place cupcakes on a wire rack to cool before frosting.

To make the frosting, beat butter and 1 cup powdered sugar until the sugar is fully incorporated. Add vanilla extract and marshmallow fluff, then beat to combine. Add remaining powdered sugar and beat to combine.

Place frosting in a piping bag with a large plain tip (I used the Wilton 1A) and pipe blobs of frosting onto each cupcake. You’ll have about a half-cup of frosting left over to slather on graham crackers, eat directly from the bag, etc.

Top each cupcake with a Hershey’s brick and if you’re serving them immediately, a sliver of broken graham cracker. If you’re not serving right away, store cupcakes in the fridge and add the graham cracker sliver right before you serve them – the graham cracker bits will get soggy from the frosting over time. Makes 18.