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April 18, 2015

Orphan Black Forest Cupcakes


Who's excited for the season premiere of Orphan Black tonight?

Memememememememe!

If you guys haven't heard of Orphan Black before-- do you live under a rock or something? It's the sci fi thriller about the clones, starring the absolutely redonk acting talent of Tatiana Maslany. Seriously, every time I see that woman, I always have this brief moment of wondering which one she is, and then I remember she's not actually cloned. There's only one of her. Or so they tell me. I'm not completely sure I believe it.


Clone dance party!

And there are boy clones now, which means double the clone-y goodness.

I've had the idea of doing Black Forest cupcakes for Orphan Black for a while now, because the name just works (Orphan Black, Black Forest, Orphan Black Forest), and because cupcakes are kind of like clones of each other.

I totally just blew your mind, right?
Cosima and Delphine think it's a scientific breakthrough.

Just making Black Forest cupcakes wasn't enough, though. I needed to decorate the cupcakes somehow, but I couldn't think of any sort of recognizable symbol from the show, except for Tatiana's face and that's not something I felt I could put on a cupcake.

So I went a bit... deeper.
Cloned DNA. Obvi. (I've decided the pink ones are the Leda clones and the orange ones are the Castor clones)

Putting DNA on the cupcakes was really simple. (Excuse me while I giggle to myself) (Shut up, that was totally funny) You just take two strands from Pull 'n Peel Twizzlers (I used fruit punch flavored, which is why they're different colors, but any kind works), and weave them into a double helix shape. Then take a tube of decorating icing from the grocery store and use it to draw the base pairs.

I was originally going to create base pairs out of Mike 'n Ikes, but they were too fat, so I raided my supplies to find a tube of writing icing. I only had purple, but it worked. Helena's probably disappointed there's not more candy though.
She's a fan of sugar.

The cupcakes themselves are super simple, just chocolate cupcakes filled with cherry pie filling and topped with whipped cream. I decorated a few a little more traditionally with a maraschino cherry and the crumbled up cake middles mostly because I ran out of writing icing.
Don't forget to share with your sestras

Black Forest Cupcakes
Yield: 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients
8 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped
1 cup usalted butter
3 eggs
1½ cups sugar
¾ cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1½ cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
Cherry pie filling (I used about half of a 20 oz. can)
1½ cups whipping cream
3 tbsp. powdered sugar
Maraschino cherries, to decorate
Optional decorations: Pull 'n Peel Twizzlers, writing icing

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the chocolate and the butter. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until the sugar is completely dissolved. Mix in the sour cream and vanilla extract. Add the cooled chocolate and mix until completely combined. Fold in the dry ingredients

Line a cupcake tin with paper liners, and fill about 2/3 of the way full with batter. Bake about 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks.

Use a cupcake corer or a sharp paring knife to core the cupcakes and fill them with cherry pie filling.

In a large bowl with electric beaters, beat the cream and the powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Use to frost the cooled cupcake. Top with a maraschino cherries and crumbs from the discarded middles, if desired.

Recipe by Kim

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