Hamburger Cupcakes and Sugar Cookie Fries

If you need a cute idea for a dessert to bring to your next BBQ or if you want to do something a little fancier for someone’s birthday – keep these adorable (and tasty) cupcakes in mind. They are fairly simple to assemble; they just require a little patience.

You can use a cake mix, brownie mix, sugar cookie mix, and canned icing to speed up the process or you can go all out and make everything from scratch. We went the “from scratch” route so spread the baking over 2 days. We made up the cookie dough and put it in the fridge and then baked the brownie on the first day so the next day all we had to do was bake the cookies and the cupcakes and then assemble them.

Sugar Cookie Dough

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 shortening

1/3 butter, softened

2 eggs

2 Tbsp + 1 tsp cream

3 1/4 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

Directions

Prepare dough early in the day or the day before as it does need to chill for at least 3 hours before baking. In a large bowl, cream the sugars and shortening and butter. Add the eggs and cream.

In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients with a wire whisk. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix with mixer until well combined. With hands, shape dough into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerator at least 3 hours, or overnight.

To bake: Preheat oven to 375. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Roll 1/2 of dough at a time, keep the rest refrigerated. Roll 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Using a knife (or a pizza cutter works great too), cut dough into thin strips. Carefully place about ½ inch apart on cookie sheet. Bake 8 - 10 mins or until very lightly browned (watch them carefully – depending on how thin you roll them and how hot your oven cooks this time canvary greatly!). Let cool on cookie sheets for 2-3 mins then remove to wire racks to finish cooling. While still on cookie sheet – sprinkle generously with granulated sugar. (This makes the fries look salted.)

*Note – if you feel your fries look to fat/long then you can cut them skinnier/shorter when you first take them out of the oven. Just use a sharp knife and press firmly so the cookies don’t crack. You will lose a few cookies doing this but that’s okay! You can use these broken cookies as the fries that are loose in your burger trays.

 

Ultimate Fudgy Brownies

Ingredients

8, 1 oz squares of unsweetened chocolate

1 cup butter

5 eggs

3 cups white sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups chopped nuts, toasted

Directions

Preheat oven to 375. Line a 9 X 13 pan with parchment paper, allowing paper to hang over sides a little bit.

Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat, set aside. With a mixer, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed for 10 minutes. Blend in chocolate, flour and salt until just mixed. Stir in the nuts. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake 35 - 40 minutes. (Don't over bake) Cool. Lift out the brownies by holding on to the parchment paper. Using a cookie cutter (or cutting around a cup) cut out your brownie circles.

 

Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

2 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.

Heat the butter and milk. Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, and salt to eggs and sugar. Mix until blended. Add hot milk and butter, mix well.

Bake at 350 until toothpick inserted near centre comes out clean and tops are lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely. Peel off paper liners.

Buttercream Icing

Ingredients

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups sifted icing sugar (approximately 1 lb.)

2 Tbsp milk

DIRECTIONS

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. (You may have to add a bit more milk or icing sugar to get to desired consistency)

In 2 separate bowls, tint 1 scoop of icing red and 1 scoop of icing yellow.

 

 

YOU WILL ALSO NEED – about 1 cup of coconut tinted green with food dye. About 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds.

 Okay, now that you have the recipes all prepared – here are the instructions for how to assemble your burgers.

 

 

 

Cut a cupcake in half. On the cut side of the bottom half spread red icing (ketchup). Place a brownie “patty” onto the bottom half of the cupcake. Ice around outside edge of "patty" with yellow icing (mustard). Sprinkle generously with green coconut. Place top half of cupcake on top of the coconut. Using your finger, dab a little bit of water on top of cupcake and sprinkle with a few sesame seeds.

 Your hamburger cupcake is now complete! You can go HERE and print out totally awesome templates for the hamburger and fry holders or you can arrange them on a serving platter. Arrange your sugar cookie fries around the burgers. If desired, you can pipe some red icing onto the fries as a blob of ketchup.

 See...it is a little fiddly...but TOTALLY worth the effort. They look so cute. You can visit Bakerella's Blog HERE to get more detailed instructions and wonderful photos.

 

Be sure to visit Easy Life for some great links!!