Blueberry Cupcakes With Hi Hat Ice Cream Tops

Blueberry cupcake with ice cream, take one
Remember the Smurfs? These cupcakes, like the Smurfs, are blue and small with white hats. Infused with blueberries, baked in miniature muffin cups and topped with vanilla ice cream, they are quite “smurftastic.”

The Story

When I was a kid, I loved watching the Smurfs — and picking on my younger sister. I even told my sister that she was left on our doorstep by the Smurfs.

For her birthday one year, our parents gave her a Smurf drum. It came in a box covered with pictures of Smurfs. Seeing it gave me a “smurfy” idea — one that Jokey Smurf would have loved. I grabbed the cardboard box, found a pair of scissors and cut the Smurfs out of the box. Next I took toothpicks from the kitchen and carefully taped a toothpick to the back of each cardboard Smurf. Then I went outside and stuck the Smurfs around the backyard.

Once the Smurfs were in place, I went inside to find my sister. I told her to come outside immediately because the Smurfs had come to take her home. At first she didn’t believe me, but then she saw the Smurfs. She almost fell for it until a gust of wind blew the Smurfs across the yard and blew my story. She immediately ran inside to tell our mom. Needless to say, it was not a happy ending.

Blueberry cupcakes with Smurf glasses, take one

The Moral of the Story

Sometimes a practical joke isn’t practical, like putting paper Smurfs outside on a windy day.

About the Recipe

The Smurfs inspired me to make these Blueberry Hi Hat Ice Cream Cupcakes for the ice cream cupcake challenge hosted by the Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. The recipe also is inspired by these two blog posts:

  • Blue Velvet Cupcakes by Sprinkle Bakes:  These cupcakes are a beautiful shade of blue. When I first saw them, I instantly thought of Smurfs. The only thing missing is smurfberries. Since smurfberries are hard to find, I added blueberry sauce to the cupcake batter instead.
  • Hi Hat Cupcakes by Bakerella: These cupcakes have amazing hi hat tops, which remind me of the cute hats the Smurfs always wear. The cupcake tops are made with a meringue-like frosting and look like ice cream cones. I wondered if the same effect could be achieved with homemade ice cream.

Blueberry cupcake batter in tins, take two

The Cast of Characters

The next best thing to smurfberries is blueberries. While the blueberries play only a small part in the batter, which has about 2 tablespoons of blueberry sauce, they give the cupcakes a big flavor.

Bowl of blueberries, take one

The Play-by-Play

First, make blueberry sauce. I like the Blueberry Sauce recipe from Allrecipes.
Simmering blueberries

While your blueberry sauce cools, blend together the butter and sugar.
Blending sugar and butter

Add an egg, and blend it into the butter and sugar mixture.
Adding an egg

In a small bowl, mix together blueberry sauce with cocoa powder.
Blueberry sauce and cocoa powder

Add blue food coloring to the blueberry mixture.
Blending berries and blue food coloring

Add the blueberries to the batter.
Adding blue coloring

Sift together the flour and salt, and add part of the flour mixture to the batter.
Adding flour

Add part of the milk. Continue adding milk and flour alternately.
Adding milk

In another bowl, mix together baking soda and vinegar.
Baking soda and vinegar

Adding the baking soda mixture to the batter.
Blueberry cupcake batter

Scoop the batter into miniature muffin cups.
Blueberry cupcake batter in tins, take four

Bake for 15 minutes, and cool completely on a wire rack.
Blueberry cupcakes cooling on wire rack, take one

As the cupcakes cool, make ice cream. I like this ice cream recipe from Cuisinart.
Vanilla ice cream finished

Freeze the ice cream until firm. Allow it to soften slightly. Place it into a pastry gun.
Pastry filler, take two

Practice making ice cream hats in a bowl first. It’s not as easy as it looks.
Ice cream melting, take two

Once you feel confident, grab your cupcake.
Blueberry cupcakes with blueberries

Then top it with ice cream.
Blueberry cupcake with ice cream, take eight

It melts fast, so you will want to freeze it quickly.
Blueberry cupcake with ice cream, take five

Or you could just eat it quickly. Be careful of ice cream brain freeze.
Melting ice cream, take two

Recipe: Blueberry Cupcakes With Hi Hat Ice Cream Tops

Summary: Blueberry and cocoa infused miniature cupcakes topped with homemade vanilla ice cream inspired by Blue Velvet Cupcakes by Sprinkle Bakes and Hi Hat Cupcakes by Bakerella.

Ingredients

1 cup white sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
1 egg
2-3 tablespoons blueberry sauce
½ tablespoon cocoa powder
½ bottle of blue food coloring
1 ¼ cup all purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup buttermilk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ tablespoon vinegar
1-2 cups vanilla ice cream, softened

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Prepare your blueberry sauce and let it cool at room temperature.
  3. In a stand mixer, cream together sugar and butter. Then mix in the egg.
  4. In a separate bowl, blend together the blueberry sauce, cocoa and food coloring. Then mix the colored mixture into the batter.
  5. Stir together the salt and flour. Mix the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately into the batter.
  6. In another bowl, mix together the baking powder and vinegar. Stir the baking powder mixture into the batter.
  7. Spoon about 1 ½ tablespoons of batter into paper lined mini-muffin cups.
  8. Bake for 15 minutes.
  9. Let the cupcakes cool for a couple of minutes in the pans, and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
  10. While the cupcakes cool, prepare your favorite vanilla ice cream in your ice cream maker.
  11. Scoop the softened ice cream it into a pastry gun and pipe it on top of the cupcakes.
  12. Freeze the ice cream topped cupcakes for about 15 to 20 minutes.

The Footnotes

  • Mixing the color: Use more food coloring than you think you will need. I used almost an entire bottle of blue food coloring, and the cupcakes were more teal than blue after baking. Next time I may try more food coloring.
  • Cooling the cupcakes: Let the cupcakes cool completely before topping with the ice cream. I let mine cool overnight. If the cupcakes are too warm, the ice cream hats will melt even faster. Next time I may even put the cupcakes in the refrigerator before topping with ice cream.
  • Making the ice cream hats: Work quickly to keep the ice cream at the perfect consistency for hi hat making. After making soft serve cones while working at McDonalds in high school, I thought I’d be able to make hi hat ice cream hats without a problem. I was wrong. This was much harder than I had expected. The consistency of the ice cream has to be just right. If it is too hard, you can’t shape it. If it is too soft, you end up with a soupy mess. You also have to work quickly before it gets to the soupy stage.

Baking time (duration): 15 minutes

Number of servings (yield): Makes 18 miniature cupcakes

Meal type: dessert

My rating: 4 stars:  ★★★★☆ 1 review(s)
I would have given it 5 stars if my ice cream hats hadn’t melted.

What was your favorite cartoon? Did you watch the Smurfs?

Published by Lori

I'm the "girl" in Girl Meets Oven.

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8 Comments

  1. Fun story and great post! I’ll bet these blueberry and oh-so smurfy cupcakes are just wonderful! I’ll be keeping these in my must-make pile when berry season roles around!!

    1. Thanks so much! Baker Smurf would have been proud of me with these smurfy cupcakes. 🙂 I just found a huge box of blueberries at the grocery store for a great price. I was surprised to see blueberries already – and couldn’t pass them up.

    1. Thanks so much for stopping by. Glad you liked the recipe. I can’t stop thinking about the citrus rice recipe on your blog. It looks delicious!

  2. Love these! That blue color is really great – it does remind me of smurfs! 🙂 And I love that there’s actually blueberries in there too, yum.

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