Chocolate Lucky Charms Green Velvet Cupcakes

Yup.  I did it again.



I didn't plan on celebrating saint patty's day.  No green beer (maybe someday...).  No corned beef and cabbage (maybe...never!!!).  My extent of acknowledging the holiday will include wearing a stripey pair of "Kiss Me I'm Irish" socks (thanks Target) and a green "Kiss Me I'm Mexican" tee (thanks Chuy's).  But as I was reaching into the pantry the other night, I noticed a box of chocolate lucky charms staring at me.  Insert: light bulb!

The structure of my chocolate version follows the same method as the vanilla: lucky charms crust; green-tinted, cereal-dotted batter; icing and marshmallow pieces.  But this time, we chocolate-ey it up, hence green velvet. 

Now I'm going to be honest with you, while the vanilla version knocked my socks off on each and every layer last year, this alternative resulted in a little disappointment.  Cereal crust was good, icing was awesome, but the layer inbetween- the actual cake itself- was a bit of a flop.  I used the red velvet cupcake recipe in my Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook (subbing green food coloring for red, of course) and wish I had done more research, which would have made this super cute, super festive cupcake taste super yummy.  But regardless of my unlucky end product, I wanted to share with you these lucky-themed treats, and encourage you to use this cake recipe instead.  Or this one or this one or this one.  Good luck!!

Chocolate Lucky Charms Green Velvet Cupcakes

Makes 18 cupcakes

For the Crust:

3 cups crushed Lucky Charms (a mini food processor works well for this)

5 tablespoons butter, melted

For the Cupcakes:

A recipe will 12 cupcakes will suffice to give you roughly 18, as the crust will take up some of the cupcake liner

Red velvet cupcake recipe of your choice

Green food coloring

1 cup Lucky Charms cereal

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a small bowl, mix together crushed Lucky Charms and melted butter.  Divide mixture evenly between ten cupcake liners.  Pack it firmly into the bottoms of the liners.  Bake for 10 minutes.

While crust is baking, prepare velvet cake recipe, subbing in green food coloring for the red.  Fold 1 cup Lucky Charms into batter.   Spoon cupcake batter over pre-baked crusts.  The batter should come almost to the way to the top of the liners (the crust prevents the batter from rising very much!)

Bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  If they are not done, test again in two minutes.  When the cupcakes are done, remove them immediately from the tins and leave them on a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.

Top with Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting and Lucky Charms Marshmallows. 

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting:

This makes quite a bit of frosting but leftovers can easily be stored in the fridge.

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sour cream
6 cups powdered sugar

Melt chocolate and butter in microwave-safe bowl in 30 second intervals until combined and smooth.

Place sour cream in large mixer bowl.  Pour in chocolate mixture and beat at medium speed until blended.  Add in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition until desired consistency is reached.  Spread over cupcakes.

Adapted from my Lucky Charms Cupcakes via The Cupcake Project.