Marshmallow brownie cupcakes

One of the blogs I follow, Cream Puffs in Venice, has a weekly feature called Magazine Mondays.  Basically the blog author makes something from a magazine so that she hasn’t purchased them for nothing.  This makes me feel a little bad.  I buy A LOT of magazines.  And about 3 – 4 of my monthly magazine purchases are foodie ones.  And I never end up making anything from them.  This changed has hopefully now changed and I would like to thank Ivonne from Cream Puffs for motivating me.  Also, last weeks Magazine Monday post was hosted on ReTorte, which is another fab food blog that you should check out :)

I made the ‘marshmallow-topped brownie cupcakes’ from the Oct/Nov 2010 issue of Donna Hay magazine.  They were beautiful.  The marshmallow was so sweet and delicious and the brownie base was intensely chocolate.  I will be making these again.


Makes 12

50g dark chocolate, chopped (after my experience in Melbourne I used Lindt.)
60g butter, chopped
⅓ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon cocoa
¼ cup plain flour, sifted
¼ teaspoon baking powder

Marshmallow topping:
1 cup water
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon gelatine powder
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
pink food colouring

Preheat the oven to 160˚C.  Place the chocolate and butter in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until smooth.  Allow to cool slightly.  Place the sugar, egg, cocoa, flour, baking powder and chocolate mixture in a bowl and stir until well combined.  Spoon into 12 x ½ cup capacity muffin tins lined with paper cases and bake for 12 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.  Allow to cool completely.

For the marshmallow topping: place the water, sugar, gelatine and vanilla in a saucepan over a high heat, bring to the boil and simmer for  3-4 minutes.  Allow to cool completely.  Place the cooled mixture and a few drops of pink food colouring into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat from 10 minutes until thick and fluffy.  Spoon the mixture over the brownies and refrigerate for 1 hour or until set. 


Donna Hay topped her cupcakes with ½ cup of toasted desiccated coconut.  I used pink sparkly sugar crystals.  Also, my cupcakes are flat on the top – in the magazine the cupcake that has been given a close up peaks up in the middle like a proper cupcake.  I reckon Donna Hay has poured a little bit of the marshmallow mixture on the brownie, let it set, added to it, let it set, added to it… as it kind of looks layered.  Meh.