Deliciousness: Andes Mint Cupcakes

Are you guys on Pinterest? I am, and I find it extremely inspiring; having all those photos of fashion, stylish hairdos, DIY tutorials, enchanting destinations and especially food scroll through my screen is fascinating to me. I've been trying loads of new recipes (you can follow that board of mine here) and thought I might start sharing a few of them with you. Up first is something I just whipped up for the first time today, Andes Mint Cupcakes, from Your Cup of Cake. Lizzy's recipe just sounded so good I had to try it! I'm a sucker for Andes Mints. Anyway, here's my version:

I actually broke out the piping bags!

One thing you can't see from my photo is that these cupcakes are filled with Chocolate Mint goodness. Lizzy suggests using a squeezy bottle to pipe the chocolate inside, but I didn't have one on hand so I just used a small, round pastry tip and a piping bag. I must say, I think a squeezy bottle would be easier, but I got the job done! 

Putting one of these in your mouth is simply magical; you get tangy, fluffy, chocolatey cake, oozing with peppermint chocolate sauce, and creamy, perfect peppermint buttercream. Need I say more? I had to force myself to stop at just one; I'm taking the rest of these around to my local yarn shops this weekend! (Don't you wish you lived near me?)

I made these cupcakes exactly by the recipe; the ONLY thing I changed was that I only put half an Andes on top of my cupcakes, instead of a whole one. From one recipe I was able to make two dozen regular sized cupcakes, and 3 Texas-sized cupcakes. I filled the cupcake liners with two scoops from my small cookie scoop (similar) and they turned out perfectly fluffy! At first I wasn't sure the chocolate filling would get me through all 2 dozen cupcakes, but it did and I was even able to drizzle some over the tops of the cupcakes as in the original blog post. It took me just over an hour from the time I started mixing up the cupcake batter to the time I was finished decorating.

I'll definitely be making these again; in fact, I'll probably be using the cupcake part of the recipe any time I need to make chocolate cupcakes, because the addition of sour cream and buttermilk to the boxed Devil's Food cake mix is a stroke of genius. This was my first time ever filling a cupcake, and now I want to fill all the cupcakes!


Next time: Cream Cheese Filled Snickerdoodles! That's right, I said it. Stay tuned!