Saturday, 3 2010

kitchy weekends: july 4th cupcake kebabs

The 4th of July fast approaching, here’s a delightfully adorable (not to mention delicious!) Dujour-approved dessert recipe for cupcake kebabs by Kristin at the Meringue Bake Shop! Wow your guests with these sweet kebabs-who needs meat when you can skewer baked goods?

Ingredients

• White cake batter (your recipe or box mix — make sure it’s white, not yellow)
• Red Velvet cake batter (your recipe or box mix –- Duncan Hines sells a red velvet cake mix)
• Blue food coloring (I used Wilton Sky Blue, which can be found at Michaels)
• 12 or 24 cup Mini cupcake pan (Michaels sells these or I’ve also seen them at Target for $10)
• Cooking spray
• Large marshmallows
• ¼ cup of water
• White frosting (your recipe or container of Funfetti 4th of July frosting)
• Bamboo skewers
• Assorted sprinkles and colored sugars in patriotic colors
• Fruit –- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, bananas whichever you prefer

Directions

Begin by making your white cake batter as directed by your recipe or the directions on the box. Split the batter into two bowls and tint one of the bowls with 3 drops (or 1/8 tsp) of blue food coloring. Keep the other bowl white.
Note: If you can’t find or don’t want to make red velvet, you could split the white batter into thirds and tint one of the other bowls with red food coloring.

Fill your cupcake wells up ¾ of the way. Spray your pan with cooking spray (liners are not needed since you’ll be taking them off anyway so save yourself a step). Bake a few batches of mini white and blue cupcakes. Let them cool in the pans for 10 mins then transfer them to a cooling rack.

Repeat the same process for your red velvet cake.

These mini cupcakes can be made at least 2 days in advance. Once they’ve cooled completely, put them in a plastic storage container with a sealed lid and leave at room temperature or in the fridge.

Prepare for assembly
Put the white frosting in a bowl and microwave until soft and smooth, about 15 seconds. Pour the sprinkles in separate bowls. For these kabobs, I used 3 bowls –1 for red sugar, 1 for blue sugar, and 1 for a mix of red, white and blue sprinkles and nonpareils. Get ¼ cup of water. You can leave this in the measuring cup. Put the large marshmallows in a bowl. Cut up your fruit into bite size pieces. Put your cooled cupcakes on a plate.

Assembly
Take a mini cupcake and dip the top into the warmed frosting. Then dip into the sprinkles. Do this with all the mini cupcakes. You may need to reheat the frosting if the cupcakes start to get stuck in the bowl. Just reheat in 10-second increments until it’s smooth again. Keep dipping until all the cupcakes are done.

Grab a large marshmallow and dip one end into the water. Let any excess water drip off then dip one end into the red colored sugar. Turn it over and dip the other end into the water. Let excess water drop off then dip into the blue colored sugar. Set aside to dry.

Take one bamboo skewer in your hand and slide a red cupcake down leaving at least 1” of skewer in your hand. Next, slide a marshmallow down, then a piece of fruit (for this skewer I used strawberries). Take a white cupcake and slide that down on top of the piece of fruit, followed with a marshmallow and another piece of fruit. Top the skewer off with the blue cupcake. Continue this until you’ve made as many skewers as you’d like.

…and we won’t tell if you just go girly!