Sharing the Wealth: Mini Hamburger Cupcakes

We are having a BBQ at our friends house tonight. I had seen these online at Cupcakes Take the Cake before and wanted to try them out. There are some things I would change the next time I do them - which I will mention a bit later.

The first thing I did was bake brownies in a 9x13 pan. I then used yellow cake mix to make some cupcakes. My first batch of cupcakes, I followed the normal directions and filled the cup 2/3 full with the batter. The cupcakes were too tall and much too wide at the top. The next batch I filled the cups 1/2 full and they were perfect. Next time I make these, I would like to try baking the cupcakes without the paper cups so the "buns" don't have little indents.

I cut the cupcakes in half and then started working on the meat part (the brownies). To make the burger patty look more realistic, I molded the brownies. To do this I just cut out little circles and then patted them out until I had the right shape and size.

For the cheese, I used white chocolate that I dyed with food coloring. I spread the chocolate out on wax paper and let it harden.

Then I cut out little square and using a large knife, I lifted up the pieces and placed them on top of the brownie.

DO NOT lay the top of the cupcake down on the counter. Put the cut side down. The top will get stuck to the counter and your bun will not look as nice.

Next, I took a package of frosting and colored it red, yellow and green. For the ketchup, mustard and lettuce. On the site I mentioned above, they used shredded coconut that was dyed green for the lettuce. I would like to try that sometime, but I wasn't sure everyone who was going to be at this party liked coconut.

Since I do not have a cake decorating set, I just used ziplock bags to do my frosting.

I wasn't able to get the dark red color I would have liked, and will probably just by some red frosting next time. After I put the frosting on, I topped the burger off with the top of the cupcake.

On Cupcakes Take the Cake, they put sesame seeds on top of the cupcakes. That didn't sound very good to me, so I didn't do it. Here are the finished products: