Cheeseburger Cupcakes

This is one I get a lot of questions on so seemed like a good place to start. A while back Mike sent me this link and suggested I make these cupcakes that look like cheeseburgers. I did and they were good but boxed cake mix is not my favorite so I substituted that part with this cake mix recipe (tossing in some cocoa powder to make the chocolate cake mix). Then Mike's mom suggested using coconut mixed with green food dye for the lettuce. What a brilliant idea! And then she taught me how to make the icing (frosting?) so now the entire recipe is from scratch! Here's what I do:

Preheat oven to 350 (I always forget to do this).

Make this cake mix

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk

Cocoa Powder

red, yellow and green food dye

shredded coconut

Beat butter, sugar, baking powder, and vanilla in a large bowl with mixer on high 3 minutes or until fluffy.

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each. On low speed, beat in flour in 3 additions alternately with milk in 2 additions, just until blended, scraping sides of bowl as needed.

Spray cupcake tins with Pam (or the like) very generously. Cover every inch!

Fill cupcake tins about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes (I monitor them closely and use a toothpick to tell when they are done.) For some reason my cupcakes never seem to rise properly, even after buying a new can of baking powder, so yours will probably look much better than mine!

Once they are done, cool in pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

Now mix some cocoa powder in with the remaining batter (I just eyeball it, it will look pale but will be nice and dark once baked).

Spray cupcake tins again (I got some mini cupcake tins for Christmas and these work awesome for the patties but you can just fill normal cupcake tins about 1/4 or less full). Bake for a short time monitoring carefully.

Once they are done, cool in pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

Vanilla cupcakes should be cool by now, cut them in half horizontally with a sharp knife (try not to crush them). Once the chocolate "patties" are cool, you may need to cut or smush them to look more like patties, then place on the bottom half of the vanilla cupcake.

Now make the icing and use red and yellow food dye to make "ketchup" and "mustard/cheese." I fill a sandwich bag with each color and cut the tip to create a pastry bag, then squeeze onto the "patty." You may need to put the icing in the fridge to set a bit.

Mix the shredded coconut with the green food dye (liquid food dye works better than gel for this part) and add atop the condiments, then top with the top half of the vanilla cupcake.