So Many Recipes, So Little Time: Spaghetti and Meatballs Cupcakes

Spaghetti and Meatballs Cupcakes

I was asked to donate cupcakes for a spaghetti dinner for my son's high school baseball team.

I tossed around a number of ideas, then turned to the Recipe Exchange, er BUZZ (sorry, old habits die hard) for assistance. Some really great recipes were suggested, but then, in another post,

Koriekiss suggested making "Spaghetti and Meatballs" cupcakes. I checked out the link she posted, then found several others. That's when I realized the idea was from Hello, Cupcake, one of my favorite idea books. Unfortunately I have either misplaced it or lent it out - I can't seem to locate it. That didn't matter, though, since there was enough information floating around the internet to get me by.

The original recipe calls for boxed cake mix and canned frosting. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against either. My oldest son, however, is very spoiled and won't eat canned frosting.

I was going homemade.

In the book this idea calls for strawberry jam. I had a brand new jar of seedless raspberry on hand, so I decided to use that instead. Lemon goes well with raspberry, so I ran with that.

I had a difficult time trying to decide what to do about the "meatballs". Ferraro Rocher candies are big, bumpy, and round. That's what was called for and what I ended up using. My main concern was the nuts, but I printed a sign detailing exactly what each cupcake consisted of and taped it to the delivery box.

Lemon juice and lemon zest...

make the lemon cupcake batter oh so tasty!

This goes into the pans. I used red cupcake liners.

Here they are with the finished cupcakes inside.

If only you could have smelled my house while these were baking.

So naturally I HAD to sample one while they were still warm.

(The recipe makes 30, I only needed 24.)

A thin layer of frosting went onto each cupcake. The recipe I used is linked below. I tinted it with yellow food coloring and a tiny bit of cocoa powder. I could have used just a tiny bit more yellow, but this worked. The frosting looks white in the photos, but it was really more pasta-colored.

Danged indoor lighting.

Then spaghetti is piped onto the top of each cupcake.

I made sure to let some droop over the sides for effect.

I used a Wilton tip #5. It worked well, but I'd probably go with a #4 next time.

Spaghetti...

And MORE Spaghetti!

Lots and LOTS of Spaghetti!

I chose to leave the cupcakes separate, but the original idea calls for placing them close

together to look like one large platter of spaghetti. (Originally from the "April Fool's" section

of the book. I peeked at this in Michael's.)

Ferraro Rocher hazelnut "meatballs" in raspberry "sauce".
The sauce is raspberry jam (seedless) warmed slightly in the microwave, whisked smooth,
allowed to cool, and thinned with a bit of light corn syrup. The corn syrup wasn't in the orignal plan, but I felt the jam was just too thick. The corn syrup worked really well here. I added a few drops of red food coloring. Not sure if I needed it, but it didn't hurt.