Sunday, November 2, 2014

York peppermint patty cupcakes -- Belated blog birthday post

I am the worst blog-mommy ever.  My sweet (no pun intended) little baking blog turned 3 on October 16th, and I skipped right over it.  Didn't mention it on the blog.  Nothing.  I didn't even realize that I missed it until October 29th -- nearly two weeks later!!  I am THE.  WORST.  EVER!


But the funny thing is that I baked a day or two before (this babka....it was a delayed post), and again two days later (when I made these brownies for the second time -- to rave reviews, yet again).  But neither for this momentous event.

Again, I SUCK.


Here's the thing -- I just didn't want JulieBakes to feel neglected and let it's birthday pass too long without mention, so I'm mentioning it now and am including this very, very, very belated (we're talking 17 days belated) blog birthday treat post!!!


I had actually been wanting to make this cupcake that I had come up with for a while.  I was inspired by all of those new (and not-so-new) mini candies -- unwrapped miniature candy bars in 1- or 2-bite sized pieces.  The ones that were calling to me the most were the York Peppermint Patty minis...and I wanted to make a cupcake for them.  


So my idea was to make a dark chocolate cupcakes with a white mint buttercream....and top them off with a mini York patty and a little dark chocolate drizzle....so that's exactly what I did!

I present to you the very belated "happy 3rd birthday, JulieBakes" York Peppermint Patty (dark chocolate peppermint) cupcakes!!

The dark chocolate cupcakes have become my go-to as of late....I made them first in July for B's birthday and then pretty recently for the spooky graveyard cupcakes.  They're super easy and uber chocolatey, and well, it's hard to go back to another chocolate cupcake when these are so darn delicious.  The white peppermint buttercream is completely my own recipe (albeit, when you've made enough buttercreams over time, I guess they all have a pretty basic base recipe).  The chocolate drizzle is straight from the Hershey's Special Dark Syrup bottle, but I put it into a small squeeze bottle to get a finer drizzle.  If you wanted to go completely homemade, a dark chocolate ganache would work well (which I wanted to make, but was out of cream).

York Peppermint Patty Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
From Brown Eyed Baker
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

8 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used semisweet since the store didn't have bittersweet.  They're basically the same thing anyway).
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F (325F if using a nonstick pan).
Line standard-sized muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in a medium heat proof bowl.
Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water, and heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted.
Whisk until smooth and combined.
(...or you could microwave the mixture at 50% powder, stirring every 30 seconds, until completely melted.  Which is exactly what I did.)
Set aside to cool until just warm to touch.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl to combine.

Whisk eggs in another bowl to combine.
Add sugar, vanilla, and salt until fully incorporated.
Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined.
Sift about 1/3 of the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined.
Whisk in sour cream until combined.
Sift the remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is thick and fully incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake liners.
Bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes.

Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on a wire rack until they are cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes.
Place cupcakes on a wire rack.
Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.

Peppermint Buttercream
Recipe by yours truly

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter
3 cups of powdered sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp peppermint extract, or more to taste (I used 1 tsp and found it to have just the right amount of mintiness aka not TOO minty...you could always start with 1/2 tsp and then add gradually to taste)
Few drops of vanilla extract (I used about 9 drops)

I wanted my icing to be white to mimic the filling of a York Peppermint Patty.  You could always add some green food coloring if you wanted to go for the typical "green" mint.

Directions:

Beat the butter with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment fir a few minutes until light and fluffy.

Add the powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time.  
Make sure that the mixer is not on high speed, otherwise you'll end up wearing powdered sugar!
Once all the sugar is incorporated, increase the mixer speed.

Add the salt and the extracts, and beat until incorporated.
Add more peppermint extract, as needed, for taste (I didn't need to add any).

Other ingredients you'll need:

12 York Peppermint Patties
Dark Chocolate Syrup (or homemade ganache.....you can always use the recipe from these cupcakes)

Assemble the cupcakes

Place the icing into a piping bag fitted with a large circle tip.

Pipe icing onto cupcakes.
I did half with a spiral, and half with a big dallop of icing on top.

Place cupcakes on a papertowel/piece of wax paper/piece of foil.
Drizzle the chocolate syrup on top of cupcakes -- I went back and forth a few times in a zigzag pattern.
Top each cupcake with a York Peppermint Patty mini.

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