Homemade Marshies

I am probably late to the party on the homemade marshmallows thing - but holy cow! Not only are they easy to make, they taste amazing! I actually prefer them to store bought now. I have been converted thanks to Ina Garten. This has become new obsession - I am already thinking about new flavors to experiment with, how to incorporate these into macarons, dipping them in chocolate, or topping them over sweet potatoes, adding this as a regular for holiday treats, and ... whoa now, let me calm down.

Anyways, I only tackled the simple vanilla marshmallow on my first go. So of course, being summer, I was inspired to make a S'mores cupcake. Luckily, there was an office birthday this week, which was the perfect celebratory excuse to make these morsels of heaven. I ate 3 or 5 before I shared.

I am not going to go and reinvent the wheel here - so please click here for Ina Garten's recipe on homemade marshmallows. I will however, post a vegan version of these marshies in a future post - because I believe in marshmallow equality.

Fresh cut marshmallows dusted in powdered sugar

As for the cupcake, I used my chocolate cake recipe, frosted with a graham cracker buttercream, topped with a toasted marshmallow.

**UPDATED** The Best Chocolate Cake Recipe (Adapted by Epicurious)

This recipe yields two 10 inch layers, three 8 inch layers, 24 standard cupcakes, or 48 mini cupcakes

You can halve this recipe if needed (use 2 eggs instead)

• 6-7 ounces fine-quality semisweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate morsels)
• 1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee (this can be made with 1.5 cups water and a teaspoon of instant coffee)
• 2 1/2 cups sugar (I actually use 3/4 cup Splenda sugar blend)
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I use King Aurthur unbleached flour)
• 1 1/2 cups Dutch press cocoa powder (you can use regular unsweetened cocoa - but you don't get that rich dark chocolate color and taste)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
• 1 tbsp vanilla 

Let's Bake!

1. Preheat oven to 300°F. and grease pans.
2. Line your cupcake pans.
3. Combine hot coffee, chocolate, and butter. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool a little.
4. Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon colored (about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer).
5. Alternate between dry mixture and chocolate mixture until well combined. Add in vanilla and buttermilk until well combined. 
6. Divide batter within the cupcake pans and place in the oven.
7. Mini cupcakes bake at 10-12 min.
   Standard cupcakes will bake at 15-20 min.
   8 inch cake layers will bake at 30-40 min. 
8. Once the toothpick or knife comes of relatively clean (a little crumb is OK - it us usually melted chocolate) Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 min. 
9. Remove cupcakes from pan and onto a cooling rack until completely cooled at room temp. 
10. Once cool, frost with buttercream or icing of choice. 

Graham Cracker Buttercream

• 4-5 cups (1 batch) vanilla buttercream (Italian meringue, swiss meringue, or traditional is fine)
• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs -finely processed

1. Mix graham crackers with buttercream until well combined.
2. Frost cupcakes (I used a large round tip)
3. Used any extra graham cracker crumbs to sprinkle over cupcake.
4. Top with toasted marshmallow (I used a creme brulee torch to toast the marshmallows on a cookie sheet, then placed them on the cupcakes).