There is just something magical about the taste of mint and chocolate together, it is so delicious and smells sooooo good! And I'm not sure when mint became the official flavor of St. Patrick's Day, but much like pumpkin and Halloween, or peppermint and Christmas, it does seem like mint and the luck o' the Irish goes together like peanut butter and jelly. Really, wouldn't potatoes be a much more appropriate flavor to celebrate the day with? Anyhow, I'm glad it's not, because then I wouldn't' have an excuse to make these Jr. Mint cupcakes... and eat them all.
Once again, I just used a box mix because it's easier, if I made every cake from scratch I would never have time to make cake... hmm... that would actually probably be much better for my waistline.
In addition to cake mix, you'll need Junior Mint candies and ingredients for your favorite homemade buttercream frosting (sorry, but frosting is where I draw the line. I like nice, stiff frosting on cupcakes and store bought frosting just doesn't behave the same way as homemade).
Prep a mini cupcake tray with paper liners and fill them half way with cake batter, then place a Junior Mint in each one, and fill with batter the rest of the way (I like to fill my liners about 3/4 of the way up for really full cupcakes).
After baking and cooling, top with a swirl of mint buttercream and chocolate buttercream frosting, then top with a second Junior Mint.
These really do taste just like the cupcake version of a Junior Mint and they are SO tasty! Seriously, I ate like six in one sitting (what?! They're MINI).
Linked to: Craft-O-Maniac, Skip to My Lou, Labels: baking
