Groundhog Cupcake Cuteness

Groundhog Cupcakes

Since tomorrow is Groundhog's day, I thought I would attempt these super cute cupcakes. I found my inspiration on Pinterest, but I thought I could do it a bit differently. I thought a chocolate cupcake would be perfect. . . you know, because dirt can be that chocolatey color :) I found a recipe from one of my favorite sources, allrecipes.com. Here is the link to the recipe I used. I will type it out below with what I did differently or how I followed it.

I made a butter cream icing and tinted it green with the Leaf Green color from Wilton. I used tip #21. What was so great about the icing, I could be messy with it and so not perfect!!!! It's supposed to look like grass. Since grass grows in a random pattern (unless it is on a golf course) the more random it was, the cuter it became, at least I thought so. I sprinkled brown sugar around the center of the cupcake. I put a Teddy Graham in the middle to act as the groundhog. This was a fun cupcake to decorate. It looks adorable. Sometimes the cute things don't always taste so great, not an issue on this one. The cupcake is good, and I love the icing.

Cake Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
3 tablespoons softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk

Cake Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and prepare cupcake pan. (I used cupcake liners, but you can spray it with a non-stick cooking spray like Pam. If I am not using my favorite Reynolds brand liners, I will spray my cupcake papers to make the cupcake come out better). Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa and set aside. I usually skip this step. I generally put my dry ingredients in a separate bowl and use a whisk. This works just fine to get the lumps out and blend the mixture. I thought I would try something different. I have seen the Barefoot Countessa use a strainer and tap the side of it to "sift" the ingredients together. I tried this today.

Sifting the Cocoa

When all you have is lumps, you can press it through with spoon

 

In another bowl, blend the butter and sugar. The original recipe says to cream it together, but with that little butter and that much sugar, it is quite difficult to get it light and fluffy. Just get it mixed well. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well. Stir in vanilla. Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk. Pour into prepared muffin/cupcake tin about half full. These rise nicely so you don't need to over fill them.

Bake for about 20 minutes.

My butter cream frosting is pretty easy and the same one I always use.
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening (I use butter flavored Crisco)
4 cups powdered sugar
2 TBPS milk
1 TSP vanilla

Mix well and tint to your liking :)

Other Ingredients for this project:
Brown Sugar
Teddy Grahams