Edible Italian Flag Cupcakes

So I tried another Cupcake Wars recipe today. It's one that I've been mulling over for about a week because I couldn't tell if the cupcakes sounded completely disgusting or AWESOME. I finally decided that I just had to give them a try. Turns out, although each of the three separate parts do not taste good on their own, they taste pretty darn delicious all put together.

The Recipe: spinach and olive oil cupcakes with a tomato marmalade filling and white chocolate cream cheese frosting. See why I was so conflicted? I even took a poll at dinner last night, and my dad looked at me like I was crazy for even considering making them (he was also disappointed that my poll had nothing to do with politics).

Phase 1: The Cupcakes - Pretty standard as far as cupcakes go (if you ignore the whole spinach part...). The really strange thing about the recipe was no butter - but don't worry - there's plenty of butter in the frosting.

First you have to puree spinach until you have 1/2 a cup. It's a crap ton of un-pureed spinach, just FYI.


Then you make pretty standard cupcakes - eggs, sugar, spinach, olive oil, vanilla, lemon juice, salt, flour, and baking powder.


Bake at 325 for about 20 minutes. The recipe says 14 minutes, but that's not even close to right.


Phase 2: The Filling  - This part took FOREVER. I seriously have no clue how this guy finished this recipe in 45 minutes. It took me a good hour just to make the marmalade. All I have to say is this: it was weird and slimy.

First you have to boil the tomatoes until the skin starts to peel off. Then you put them in cold water, peel the skin, remove the seeds, and dice.

Then you cook them with sugar, cinnamon, and cloves until they are "thick and syrupy." This is the part that took forever. They do not cook quickly. Luckily, they don't take much watching or stirring, so I was able to make the frosting while they were syruping.





Phase 3: The Frosting - I don't like frosting, so I never really enjoy making it. This frosting seemed particularly disgusting because I also don't like white chocolate or cream cheese.

This frosting was super easy, actually. Beat cream cheese. Melt white chocolate. Beat cream cheese and melted chocolate together (hard to picture because they're exactly the same color). Then add butter, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Continue beating for about a minute. MUCH easier than Italian Butter cream - trust me. I don't think this frosting tastes good at all, but it is a nice addition to the cupcakes once they're all assembled.












Phase 4: Assembly - This part's always fun because you get to use an apple corer to remove the middle of the cupcakes (so there's a place for the filling to go). Nathan called this the "goose turd" phase.

As you can see, the insides of the cupcakes do not look all that appealing... They were all quickly consumed, however; and it's the perfect way to taste-test the cupcakes to make sure they aren't gross - a genuine concern considering the spinach. Once there are holes in the cupcakes, you can fill them with the marmalade, and then put the frosting on top = YUM. I had some very happy taste-testers.