Beary Hawaiian Cupcakes
For my sister-in-law's baby shower this past Saturday I wanted to make some Hawaiian themed cupcakes. After looking online for a while, and not finding anything I liked, I decided to merge a couple of the ideas I saw into a new combination. Here are the recipes for the cake and the frosting:
CAKE:
Box of Betty Crocker Vanilla cake
20 oz. can of pineapple chunks
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners.
2. Mix up a box (yup... that's right) of Betty Crocker's Moist Deluxe Vanilla cake as directed on the back of the box.
3. Puree a full 20 oz. can of Dole Pinapple chunks and add it to the mix (I used my Vitamix for this).
4. Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Bake according to the directions on the box. I think I baked my cupcakes for about 13 minutes total with a convection oven. You can check them with a toothpick to make sure they are done (toothpick should come out clean).
5. Once the cupcakes are done make sure you place them on a counter and not on top of the oven to cool so the middles don't sink in. The tops of the cupcakes should be either at the level of the liner or a little below.
TOPPING:
2 cups ground graham cracker (to as fine a dust as you can. I used my Vitamix for this too.)
FROSTING:
TIP: Don't start making the frosting until your cupcakes have cooled, you are ready to frost, and your topping is finely ground and in a bowl big enough to dip a cupcakes in to. Once the frosting is ready and you take it off the heat it actually cools and sets fairly quickly so you will need to frost and dip right away.
2 egg whites
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/3 cup cold water
1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1. Put egg whites, sugar, water, and syrup in top of a double broiler. Beat until mixed well. Place over rapidly boiling water. Beat constantly with electric beater while it cooks for 7 minutes or until it till stand in peaks when beater is raised. Remove from heat.
2. Stir in marshmallows and vanilla. Beat until they melt.
Now the fun begins!
1. Frost your cupcakes and make the top more flat than pointed. The frosting level should be just above the paper liner.
2. As soon as you frost the cupcake, dip it in the bowl of finely ground graham cracker and make sure it is completely covered.
I used a wood serving tray that I had to put the cupcakes in. I put some blue saran wrap diagonally across about half of it and used light brown sugar to fill the other half diagonally to make it look like a beach. Then I placed the cupcakes on the tray with some on the "sand" (brown sugar) and some on the "water" (blue saran wrap). I used a combination of Gummi Life Savers and Teddy Grahams to make the little bears in floaty rings, palm tree picks that I got at a baking store, and maraschino cherries cut in half (beach balls) to decorate the cupcakes that were on the brown sugar. Enjoy!
The frosting recipe was borrowed from allrecipes.com. Here is the link to the actual recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/marshmallow-icing/.
Enjoy, share, and make sure you share pictures with me when you make this. It was so much fun. :)
