Thin Mint Cupcakes

Thin Mint Cupcakes

Cupcakes:

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted

1 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups sugar

2/3 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

5 egg whites

12 thin mint or other chocolate-mint cookies, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift together flour and baking powder in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together one cup sugar and oil. Alternate whisking in the flour mixture and the milk. Add the vanilla, then the cookie pieces.

In a metal bowl, whip the egg whites until they are foamy. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar into the egg whites while continuing to beat them, until they form soft peaks -- if you lift the beater out of the bowl the egg whites should hold their shape. When they're ready, slowly fold them into the batter. You want to do this as gently as possible, and be careful not to over mix; the egg whites make the batter fluffy, but if you mix them in too hard it will negate the fluffiness.

Divide the batter into cupcake tins, filling them about 2/3 full. Bake for 10 minutes, turn tins, bake for another 10 minutes. Let cool.

Makes 24.

Ganache:

1 cup heavy cream

8 oz bittersweet chocolate

1 tbsp butter

Bring cream to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat, add chocolate and butter. Let sit for a little while, then whisk until smooth. Let cool.

Mint Icing:

1/4 cup flour

1 cup half-and-half cream

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temp

1 cup superfine sugar (also sold as baker's sugar or extra fine sugar; you can make your own by putting regular sugar in a food processor)

2 tbsp Creme de menthe

Green food color

Sprinkles for decorating

Whisk the flour and cream together in a bowl over medium heat until it thickens. This happens fairly quickly, about five minutes. Move it to a container of some kind and put it in the fridge for about twenty minutes until cool.

Meanwhile, beat the sugar and butter together until fluffy. When the flour mixture is cool, whip it in until the icing is smooth. Add the Creme de menthe and food color.

To combine:

Using a spoon or spatula, spread about 2 tbsp of ganache on top of the cooled cupcakes.

Put the icing in a piping bag with a star tip and pipe a spiral of icing on top of each cupcake. Decorate with sprinkles and leftover thin mint cookies.

I'm not going to lie, I think these were some of the best cupcakes I have made so far in this project. The icing especially is totally amazing -- it has a wonderful airy texture but it tastes great, and it holds its shape perfectly, plus it really has no flavor until you add extracts or liqueurs to it so you can make it to go with any type of cupcake you want. I'm definitely going to be using the recipe again.

Adapted from Zoebakes.com