Cake Madness - Day 26

Cake of the Day: Bear Claw Cupcakes

To start off with, this is was I was originally going to make, Cub Cakes. They are so cute, and would be so easy, just store-bought frosting with some York peppermint patties and Junior mints on them. And mint chocolate is so good, so why did I change my mind? Simple . . .I realized I had made the Penguin Cupcakes only a week ago, and they were also chocolate cupcakes (and since the recipe turned out so well I was planning on using it again) with vanilla frosting and mint chocolate toppings. This seemed too similar to me, so I wracked my brain trying to see what else I could come up with. My thought process went something like this: "Hmm, cub cakes, grown up cubs are bears, bear claw cupcakes would be fun. I think that is an ice cream flavor. What is in that ice cream? Chocolate, caramel swirl, and chocolate covered cashews? I think I could do that". Thus, Bear Claw cupcakes.

Rawr

I found this idea for how to make my chocolate cupcakes have caramel in them: Chocolate cupcake with caramel filling. I didn't have a lot of time to make these, and since I thought the chocolate cupcakes that I made before had a batter that was too thin to put the caramel in, I just used a boxed cake mix. I had the hardest time finding the caramel dip, and ended up having to buy the individual containers of it . . .oh well, it worked out. I didn't know what to make the pad of the paw out of, but turtles made out of cashews sounded good (and easy) so I used those, and bought whole cashews for the claws. I think they turned out pretty well (oh, and cashews with homemade cream cheese frosting = win).

Here are the comments these received:

• I liked the "surprise" in the middle
• I broke my month rule of not eating any of your evil cakes. I must repent, but it was delicious

I got mixed reviews on the caramel filling, one person told me it was too slimy, and another loved it but wished there had been more in the cupcake. I thought it was just right. Does this sound like Goldilocks and the Three Bears to you? How fitting.

Mmm, caramel