Hot Cocoa Cupcakes and a Parade

*Hot Cocoa Cupcakes*

Saturday, our town had their annual Christmas parade. The youngest boy was in it with the high school band and the girl was in it with her girl scouts troup.

After that, the girl and I had signed up to do a She & Me event at a local church. It was a girl scout event, and a cupcake exchange! They were also having a cocoa tasting and some crafts.

So, we had to decide on a holiday cupcake. We kicked around some ideas like red and green colored white cake mix, then layered topped with white frosting and holiday sprinkles. We also thought about mint chocolate with green dyed frosting and andes mints sticking out the top.

The girl suggested a cocoa cupcake and I just figured she meant chocolate. I told her we could use marshmallow cream inside a chocolate cupcake but with a graham cracker bottom and calling it a S'mores cupcake. We could crumble up some graham cracker over a marshmallow cream frosting as well. Fun, right?

She was all, no, Mom. I mean a Hot cocoa cupcake! I thought about it. Then, I said, how about we stuff it with marshmallow cream and top it with marshmallows. And she was all, "Yeah!!"

So, we did!

I made her help, cause it was a She & Me event. We're supposed to do it together.

Besides, it was fun. She was all. Really, Momma? You're gonna blog about this?

Seriously? Of course, I'm gonna. It's what I do!

I used a Chocolate Cake Recipe from Heather Christo's website.

I picked it cause it's not a heavy, dark chocolate. I would pick a dark, rich chocolate, but kids sometimes like a sweeter, lighter flavor.

They still had a nice color to them, though.

You can see it, right here on her face!

She really liked the batter. She licked the KitchenAid paddle clean!

I think she had fun, too.

After they came out, we loaded a ziploc bag with marshmallow cream. We were going to make our own frosting, but I used the bucket stuff instead. It was seriously good. Heather Christo has a nice marshmallow frosting on her website if you want to try the from scratch stuff.

But we were making these cupcakes after going to see Breaking Dawn at the movie theater. Also after going to Applebee's for dessert. :) It was getting late and we were just having fun, and didn't want to take forever. I think we were watching episode's of Witches of Waverly Place also. Fun stuff.

The ziploc bag worked fine. I used a large frosting tip in the bottom and piped it into the center of the cupcake once they were cool. Easy clean up. I had thought about piping it all over the top and then toasting it, but she wanted to decorate it with marshmallows.

So, I spread a little marshmallow cream over the top.

And she placed marshmallows on top of that.

Cute, huh?

Then we sprinkled the tops with hot cocoa mix, to enhance the flavor and to make them pretty.

I tried to put one under the broiler to see how it would turn out. They browned a bit and puffed up, but unless I wanted to spend a lot of time checking each one it would have taken forever. If I'd have had a kitchen torch, it would have been easier. Also, I think marshmallow frosting would have browned better and not blackened.

All in all, they were some seriously cute cupcakes. We found some cute gingerbread men wrappers at JoAnn's that came with little paper gingerbread men on sticks and stuck them into the cupcakes.

What a great idea for a cupcake and I can take zero credit. This creativity is 100% hers. She thought it up, I just made it happen.

So, on to Saturday. The boy looking dapper in his uniform. Dontcha love a guy in uniform? And the girl in her PJ's. Don't worry, she had a long sleeve tee and thick thights under her PJ's. 

Her troop.

The boy's band looked great warming up. See the fire truck behind them? That's not my fireman's truck. He works for the city and this is our little town's volunteer crew.

The fireman and I walked down to the coffee shop. And after I spilled the half and half all down my shirt and jeans and shoes, we walked outside to watch the parade.

Not kidding about the half and half. It takes forever to wipe that off of your clothes, by the way. VERY white against a grey thermal sweater.

They had decorated paper bags and the girl scout leaders glued on the words to Twas the Night Before Christmas.

After the parade, the girl and I took off to the church for our cupcake exchange, armed with 12 of our fabulous creations.

They placed half the cupcakes on a table for tasting and the other half went into styrofoam containers. When we left, we each got a container with 6 different cupcakes to take home with us!

We also got a bag of three styrofoam cups, each having some cocoa mix in them. There were tea kettle's filled with hot water and you filled your cups up halfway and mixed. She liked #1 best,  I liked #2 best.

She also got to make a cross ornament out of beads and we visited a small holiday shop. They also had 2 career rooms set up to learn about a mom who is a nurse and another mom who is a lawyer.

My cupcake is similar to my mint cupcake idea, but this was super cute. White cake with a dyed green cake center. I think there was also a mild mint flavoring in the center. White frosting with two Ande's mints stuck in.

Her cupcake was funfetti cake mix baked in a ice cream cone. Fun! Topped with white frosting, sprinkles and a candy cherry.

It was a great weekend. I did a lot of cooking.

I also made chili for a chili cookoff at work today. There are 6 or 7 crock pots of chili downstairs heating up for judging. Anyone that wants to try all of them can judge and put their winning vote in a bucket.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post about it!

And P.S., when at JoAnn's finding fun cupcake wrappers, the girl and I picked up some fun holiday baking supplies for a giveaway, this week! Come back later this week for the giveaway info!