Pop-Tart Cupcakes

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my tweets earlier in the month about my computer crashing. My desktop PC got a nasty virus and we ended up reformatting everything. The upshot to this is that I had an old hard drive in storage from my previous computer whose files needed to be transferred over, since the drive was having problems. I knew it was going to be a long process and I simply hadn’t had a chance to do it previously, so it seemed like a good time to get this done since we were reloading everything anyway. When I looked through the restored files, I found some photos of a culinary creation I came up with in 2008: Pop-Tart cupcakes! This was before Pinterest was invented, so it was just a wacky idea I came up with on my own. 😉 I thought I would share the photos here since I know you guys love unique food ideas!

There’s a fun story behind these cupcakes. I used to work part-time in a retail store in order to increase my savings while I was building my own business. This allowed me to accrue the financial safety net I needed to expand my business and do things like pay cash for a car. The staff at my part-time job were fantastic and remain good friends of mine. One memorable event at this job occurred during a campaign where staff were raising money for charity. Since I was famous for my cupcakes, I said that I would make a batch to celebrate once we finished our fundraiser. To add a fun twist, I said that whichever staffer raised the most money would be able to pick what kind of cupcakes I made. We had a fun couple of weeks raising money for the cause and discussing what cupcakes the winner might pick. There were all kinds of ideas bandied about, from “Chocolate” to “Superman cupcakes” – but the winner had an even more epic idea. When I asked what she wanted, she replied, “Pop-Tart Cupcakes!”

I had so much fun figuring out how I would make Pop Tart cupcakes! My biggest regret is that I did not write the recipe down, although I did have the good sense to take some photos. From what I recall, I made a dense butter cake, then took one or two Pop-Tarts, smashed them in to little pieces, and mixed them into the batter.

The result was a buttery cupcake with delicious Pop-Tarts fragments inside.

But, my vision didn’t stop at making them taste like Pop-Tarts. I wanted them to look like Pop-Tarts, too! I made a white icing, drizzled it over the tops, and added colorful sprinkles. They were a lot of fun to make and a big hit with all the employees!