Groundhog Cupcakes

“Rise and shine, campers, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cooooold out there today.”  (love that movie).  Happy GROUNDHOG DAY folks!

Ya gotta feel for poor Punxsutawney Phil – he lives in a hole, and the one time that anyone cares what he has to say is one day a year, when 9 times out of 10, he let’s us know that there will in fact be another 6 weeks of Winter.  And then everyone gets mad at him and he goes back in his hole all sad until next year.

I guess I have a weakness for furry animals with buck teeth.

Well today I’m giving Phil a shout out – these cute little Groundhog Cupcakes, adapted from an idea a co-worker sent me from Family Fun where they actually used chocolate pudding cups and Milano cookies, which is equally as fun and delicious!  But  I decided to up the anty a smidgen and make brownie cupcakes out of them.  The groundhogs take a bit of time to assemble, but once they’ve come to life, well they’re almost too cute to eat.  Almost I said.  Sorry Phil 🙂

Groundhog Cupcakes
Adapted from Family Fun

INGREDIENTS
*yields 12 cupcakes

1 box of your favorite brownie mix, prepared according to the instructions

12oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

12 Nutter Butter cookies

sliced almonds (not slivered)

peanut butter chips

white chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

*green sprinkles or Oreo crumbles

1) Prepare your brownie mix according to instructions.  Take a 12-muffin tin, spray with non-stick cooking spray, and fill each muffin slot 2/3 way full with brownie batter.  Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a fork or toothpick comes out clean.

To assemble your groundhogs:

1) Start by taking 1/2 of the 12oz bag of chocolate chips (6oz) and melting them over a double boiler or in the microwave.  This chocolate will be used as the ‘glue’ to paste your eyes, cheeks, teeth, etc. to the groundhog.

2) When the chocolate is melted, you can start putting his ‘face’ on.  Start with the teeth – find some broken almond pieces that kind of look like teeth and if you can’t find any, just take some of the slivers and break them. They don’t have to be perfect.  Take a toothpick, dip it in the melted chocolate, and dab a little bit of it on back of the almond and stick it in the center of the Nutter Butter, about half way down.

3) Then add the nose by taking another dab of chocolate and making a small circle right at the top of the teeth/almond.

4) Then add your ‘cheeks’ by cutting the tips off of 2 peanut butter chips so that they lay flat on the cookie.  Take another dab of chocolate to the side of the chip that you cut off, and then place a chip on either side of the almond teeth, underneath the nose, almost making a diamond shape.

5) Add your eyes by again, cutting the tips off of two white chocolate chips, dabbing chocolate on the cut side of the chip, and then gluing the eyes to the top part of the nutter butter.  Take another small dab of chocolate to make the ‘pupils’ of the eyes in the center of the white chips.

6) Lastly, take 2 sliced almonds and stick them on either side of the top of the nutter butter to make the ears.  They stick really nicely in the peanut butter so you won’t even need to use the chocolate to glue them in.

To assemble the cupcakes

1) Prepare your chocolate ganache topping by combining the remaining 6oz. of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup heavy cream in a double boiler, stirring until smooth.  Top each cupcake with the ganache so that it covers the entire cupcake top (it’s ok too if it spills over the sides).

2) While the ganache is still wet on the cupcake, sprinkle the green sprinkles (for grass – slightly unrealistic for Groundhog Day) or the Oreo crumbs (for dirt – I used sprinkles – trying to be optimistic about spring!).

3) Take each groundhog, cutting about 1/4 off the bottom (otherwise they’ll be a bit too tall for the cupcake) and sticking in the center of the cupcake, just so their heads are peeking out.

And the best part is that I made sure these guys did NOT see their shadow, so get your bikin’s out folks 🙂 Spring’s a comin’!