Campfire Cupcakes

Every Labor Day, for the last seven years, my boyfriend, then fiance and now husband, have gone with our friends on a camping trip.  More often than not, we pitch our tents on the "shores" of Lake Shasta, where we enjoy a few unadulterated days of campfires, swimming, boating and eating good food with great company.  Over the years, our group has grown and changed, adding dogs, kids, boyfriends/girlfriends and husbands and wives.  It is something that the Fujii clan looks forward to every year.

This year, I thought it would be fun to trying and capture some of that camping magic in a cupcake.  To me, there is nothing that is more quintessentially camping, than the taste of s'mores.  Actually, I should say that there is nothing edible that is more so - the smell of deet, sunscreen and dirt all scream camping, but I would prefer not to take a bite out of any of those flavors...  I knew that the flavor existed in the cupcake world, as I have sampled it at Kara's before.  One of my besties has also tried the flavor, but with a little twist in that she made a grahm cracker cupcake (in leu of chocolate.)  But I wanted to try it out on my own!  I searched around for a recipe that looked like it might work (and not involve too many steps...or dishes...)  I stumbled upon a great new blog that had a ton of great cupcake recipes that I will definitely be trying!!!  Margarita cupcake, anyone?  Yes please!!

What follows is an account of my s'mores baking adventure!!

Pulled out the polka dot liners for this one, and my trusted cupcake spatula!  Another bridal shower gift!

Grinding up the butter + grahm crackers...things are already looking good.

1 tablespoon in each cup, and then pound it down with a shot glass.  We have plenty of those! Makes a perfect crust   for many things!

I liked this part - adding marshmallows and chocolate chips before you even put the batter in!

They are a bit more flat than I like, but there were a lot of wet ingredients....I guess it's all about taste!

 The frosting took a LOT of eggs (8 egg whites, to be exact).  I should have whipped it for longer so that it was a bit more stiff, but it was still nice and glossy!

We are without a kitchen torch, so my husband brought up his jumbo one from the garage!  I was not allowed to handle it because chances are good that I would light something on fire...

But he enjoyed the job, and did great I might add!

 The next day I brought about 1/2 of my loot to school to share.  Our camping group was small and I didn't want to be "forced" to eat too many :)  I enlisted the help of two of my fabulous students, Saatchi and Emma.

Excuse the blurriness - the light wasn't right and my hand was shaky!

This looks like a s'more to me!!

These lovely ladies are members of the clean wrapper club :)  

I definitely recommend trying, eating and enjoying this summertime/anytime treat!