Blueberry Cupcakes With Hi Hat Ice Cream Tops

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.

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.

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.

The Play-by-Play

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

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

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

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

Add blue food coloring to the blueberry mixture.

Add the blueberries to the batter.

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

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

In another bowl, mix together baking soda and vinegar.

Adding the baking soda mixture to the batter.

Scoop the batter into miniature muffin cups.

Bake for 15 minutes, and cool completely on a wire rack.

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

Freeze the ice cream until firm. Allow it to soften slightly. Place it into a pastry gun.

Practice making ice cream hats in a bowl first. It’s not as easy as it looks.

Once you feel confident, grab your cupcake.

Then top it with ice cream.

It melts fast, so you will want to freeze it quickly.

Or you could just eat it quickly. Be careful of ice cream brain freeze.

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