Guest Post: Peanut Butter Fingers? Grasshopper Cupcakes

Hello Mara fans! My name is Julie and I blog about my life, food and fitness over at Peanut Butter Fingers. When Mara put out a call for guest bloggers via Twitter I jumped at the chance to be a part of What?s For Dinner.

Aside from my obvious love for peanut butter which you may have gathered from my blog name, I have a serious sweet tooth. Mara?s cupcakes always make me drool, and though I cannot hope to make

Right before Thanksgiving, I was determined to turn my coworker?s favorite grasshopper pie into grasshopper cupcakes, highlighting her favorite peppermint and cocoa flavors. The cupcakes were at hit at my office and the minty flavor in the buttercream icing makes them perfect for the holidays.

To make the cupcakes, I first baked up a batch of chocolate cupcakes.

You can use your favorite chocolate cake recipe or go the box-mix route like me. I chose a box of Duncan Hines butter recipe fudge cake mix and followed the directions on the back of the box to make 24 cupcakes.

I let the cupcakes cool while I prepared a creamy mint filling using this recipe I found from A Good Appetite. I prepared four times what was called for to make sure I had ample filling for all 24 cupcakes.

Then it was time for the best part!

Mint buttercream frosting.

To make the icing, I made a standard buttercream icing, but added peppermint extract and a tiny bit of green food coloring to the mix.

Mint Buttercream Icing

Ingredients

1 c. butter (2 sticks)
4-5 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk (I used 2 percent)
1/8 ? 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (add little by little until you get the level of mint flavor you desire)
2 drops green food coloring

Directions

Beat butter for about two minutes, or until creamy
Add 4 c. powdered sugar, milk, food coloring and peppermint extract and beat until combines
Beat in additional cup of powdered sugar

Once the buttercream icing was ready, I let it chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes so it would be easier to work with when I was ready to frost my cupcakes.

After icing the cupcakes, I garnished each little cake with a quarter of a York peppermint patty.

The end result was delicious!

I hope to make these again for Christmas and use red food coloring in the mint buttercream frosting for half of the cupcakes. Red + green + mint + chocolate = Win!

If you give these cupcakes a go, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Happy Holidays!

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