Helpful hands make light work!

As I said in my first post, my grandmothers and my mom love to cook, which is something I hope that I am passing on to my daughter. She seems to be taking after me in this area (and in loving to read, something else that thrills me!). She has always loved helping me cook, but when she was younger I used to have to say "help, don't hinder!" as she poured the flour on the floor, or took the recipe and tried to make a paper hat out of it. But now that she's older she is turning out to be a huge help when we are cooking.

One of our favorite things to do is make cupcakes. I had promised some co-workers that I'd bring some to a meeting tomorrow, so I asked my little sous chef to help me. She did all the egg cracking, ingredient pouring and batter stirring of the cupcakes (I still maintain control over the electric mixer). Then she was in charge of filling the cupcakes and putting the toppings on. Not only is is great to have an extra set of hands, she's a heck of a lot of fun to work with.

I was looking for a cupcake recipe with chocolate and some kind of filling, so I decided to try these Snickers Cupcakes. I love love love snickers candy bars, so I figured I couldn't go wrong!

So what was good? They were really easy to make, fill and frost. The chocolate cupcake had a good texture and good chocolate taste, but wasn't overpoweringly chocolate.

And the bad? Nothing bad here, but I think that when I make them again I will tweak the filling to make it more ... I don't know... filling? The caramel sauce tastes good, but it's so thin it just seeps into the cupcake. Maybe I'll try a ganache, or a creamy caramel filling instead.

Snickers Cupcakes

Adapted from Homemade by Holman

Recipe yields about 30 cupcakes.

Cake:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.  Combine sugar through salt in a large bowl.  Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla and beat on low until just incorporated.  Increase speed to medium and beat two minutes.  Stir in boiling water, the batter will be thin.  Transfer batter to prepared pans, filling each liner about 2/3 of the way full, approximately 1/4 cup of batter.  Bake approximately 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pans about five minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

When cool, use a paring knife to cut a small cone shape out of the top of each cupcake.  Add caramel sauce as desired.  You can cut the point off the cone and add it back to the cupcake if desired. 

Frosting:
½  cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 crisco
1/4 cup caramel sauce
3 tbs caramel macchiato flavored coffee creamer
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb powdered sugar
8 mini Snickers bar for garnish

Beat butter and Crisco together on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about two minutes.  Add caramel sauce and vanilla and mix to incorporate.  Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating on low speed until incorporated to reach the right consistency. Add creamer, 1 tbs at a time until the right consistency is reached. Increase speed to medium-high and whip about one minute until light and fluffy.  Fill a piping bag and pipe onto cupcakes or frost as desired.

Coarsely chop candy bars and sprinkle over the top of cupcakes.