I entered these s'more cupcakes into the Cupcake Camp Montreal baking competition and was a finalist for Amateur Design. I spent weeks working on these cupcakes to make them just right, changing around ingredients, varying the method of the recipe, mixing up the design. Five well thought out batches later, I came up with these. The perfect flavors of a s'more in a cupcake form. And it tastes just as good as it looks. Believe me.

I often find baking can be quite the adventure. Like when you want to a make a large batch of meringue using 16 eggs and it won't stiffen because you got the teeeeniest bit of egg yolk into the whites. You thought you fished it all out with a spoon, but when you give up on your hopeless meringue after 20 minutes of beating it on high, you realized that maybe you hadn't. So the 16 egg whites go down the drain. And then, after making it right, you suddenly have 32 egg yolks sitting in your refrigerator (what on earth am I going to do with 32 egg yolks?!).

Or sometimes a squirrel steals your spatula. That happens too. Like when you set a pot of chocolate on the balcony to cool down for just a minute and a squirrel comes by, plucks up your spatula, and walks off whistling a little tune. Well, maybe not whistling, but he did look oh so smug. Even left a shiny little chocolate trail, squirrely footprints and all. I hope he realizes that spatula won't keep him warm at night.

He came back later to taunt me. He brought a nice girl squirrel over to lick up his fancy chocolate mess. I imagine this was quite the hot date. I just hope I don't have little squirrels coming back to steal more of my utensils in the spring. Spatula thief.

This s'mores cupcake features a graham cracker cupcake absolutely stuffed with a marshmallow creme, covered with a decadent dark chocolate, and topped with a toasted marshmallow meringue. All of the necessary and proper components are present (and are in the correct quantities!). The cupcake is light and, since its made of graham crackers, it tastes of graham cracker just like it should. The marshmallow filling is dense, sticky, and wonderful. I ate some of the dark chocolate straight from the bowl. And the marshmallow meringue honestly tastes like campfire marshmallows. Even if you burn it, it still tastes delicious (just try not to start a fire with these though).

Although these cupcakes are involved, they are well worth the effort and can bring campfire s'mores back into the fall season (or any season for that matter).