Summer = S'mores!

And if you're like me and you really could do without all the bug bites and sunburns that camping brings, just stay inside your apartment and make S'mores Cupcakes. They're a lot prettier than regular S'mores, and last longer too!

I found this recipe at Cupcake Bakeshop, a fabulous blog that chronicles the cupcake adventures of one woman in California. She uses crazy things like jackfruits and Himalayan goji berries in her cupcakes, plus she takes lovely pictures. While I don't encounter jackfruits too often in my local grocery, I had been ogling the S'more Cupcake recipe for awhile and finally caved.

The secret to the S'mores cupcake - and many other of the filled CB cakes - is the cone technique. You see, this summery cupcake not only has a graham cracker crust, similarly flavored cake and a smooth chocolate ganache topping it off, but it is filled with marshmallow fluff. And the cone technique is how that scrumptious fluff gets inside the cupcake.

The cone technique goes like this: after the cupcake is baked, take a small serrated knife and cut out a cone shape from the top of the cupcake. Chop off the pointy part of the cone so that you still have a cupcake top left. Spoon some fluff into the hole of the cupcake and replace the cupcake top, and ta-daa! You're ready to throw on some ganache! Feel free to experiment with your favorite chocolate or vanilla cupcake recipes, filling them with raspberry jam, custard, nutella, or any other deliciousness you can think of.

NB: In the ingredient section of the recipe, the amount of butter is listed as 3/4 cup. But in the note after the recipe, the author says that this makes the cakes too small (for her liking) so you may want to try using less butter. I've made these cakes both ways, and both are delicious - with more butter you get a more dense, heavy cake. With less butter, the cake is much fluffier, which I think contrasts better with the rich filling and topping. But either way, f'amazing.

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