As usual, when Jas told me that his coworker was hosting a cookout, my first thought was what I could bring. Of course, I was excited to finally meet some of the people he works with, but I love having occasions to try out new recipes. Since Jas frequently brings my cupcakes to his office, he said I just had to bring them to the cookout. After checking with the hostess that dessert was ok to bring, I started thinking about cookout cupcakes.

Once I scoured Pinterest for ideas, I found a few pictures of hamburger cupcakes and settled on those. I discussed (several times) with one of my friends whether the “hamburger” should be frosting or brownie. The brownie looked more authentic but I love frosting, so I didn’t want the frosting to cake ratio to be off. I finally settled on using the brownie, but hollowing out the lid of the cupcake and filling it with frosting.

First I got all my supplies ready by making one batch of butter cupcakes, and one batch of Ghirardelli brownies (my favorite boxed version!) Since I wanted the brownies to be thinner to fit better in the cupcake, I took what should have been one 8×8 pan, and spread it into two. After cutting out the brownies into circles, I ended up with 18 “hamburgers”, and lots of tasty leftover corners to snack on. Since I had 30 cupcakes, this left plenty of taste testing for those too!

After making one big batch of buttercream, divided into plain, chocolate, and two dyed red and yellow, I was ready to start. I unwrapped all the cupcakes, cut them in half and placed a brownie on a dollop of frosting on the bottom “bun”.

Next came the lettuce (coconut dyed green) topped with ketchup and mustard frosting. Then I scooped cake out of the top “bun” and filled it with white frosting. This was mainly to have extra frosting, but if it leaked a bit, I figured it’d just look like mayonnaise. Stick the lid on top, and add a few seasame seeds, and you’ve got a hamburger cupcake!

I can never bring just one thing though, so I also decided to make mini pies in a cupcake pan. I thought this would be difficult, but it was much easier than I expected, and a great way to use up leftover fruit! I had two apples, two peaches and a pint of strawberries, so I figured I’d just see how many pies I got out of that. I already have recipes for all three of those pies, so I just scaled the filling down based on how much fruit I had. I also precooked the apples so that the pie crust wouldn’t burn while the apples were still crunchy.

I saw a tip online to line the cupcake pan with strips of parchment paper, and I would highly recommend this. It made it a breeze to lift them out of the pan, and also allowed me to peak at the bottom to check if the crust was browned.

(Peach left, strawberry right)

I think it was a good idea as well to put a different top crust on them to help people know which pie was which. Since you don’t have to cut into them, it’s hard to tell! I loved bringing these pies along and not having to worry about needing a knife and pie lifter. I think it prompted people to eat them too since it’s less hassle then trying to find a plate. I will definitely be making mini pies again!