Don't be fooled! You can eat those 'cupcakes' as your main meal! But those 'sandwiches' are dessert! |
Tomorrow is April 1st - traditionally known as April Fool's Day! Do you want to have fun with food? This is a nice trick - not mean at all - just fun and yummy!
Here's a secret: there's not a grain of sugar in these cupcakes.
This is a photo I took a few years ago when I made cupcakes and grilled cheese for my kids for dinner. But what you are really looking at is meatloaf, mashed potatoes and pound cake for dessert! Yes, the cute little pastel cupcakes are really mashed potatoes covering delicious meatloaf. And that grilled cheese sandwich is really slices of pound cake with yellow 'cheese' looking frosting! So easy but so fun! At the time I got these idea's and more from Family Fun.
Meat Loaf Cupcakes
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Mashed Potato Frosting
3 cups mashed potatoes
Food coloring
Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 12 muffin tin cups with foil bake cups. In a large bowl, mix together all of the meat loaf ingredients until well combined. Divide the mixture evenly among the lined cups (the liners should be about three quarters full). Place the filled muffin tins on cookie sheets and bake the cupcakes for about 15-20 minutes or until cooked through.
Divide the mashed potatoes among three small bowls and stir a few drops of food coloring into each batch to create blue, yellow, and pink pastel frostings. Spread a generous dollop on each cupcake.
Makes 12 cupcakes.
Grilled Cheese Pound Cake
Pound cake (homemade or use something like Entenmann's brand)
1 cup buttercream or white frosting (canned is fine)
Yellow and red food coloring
Cut the pound cake into bread-like slices and toast them in a toaster oven just until they turn golden brown. Once they've cooled for a few minutes, stack two slices for each sandwich and cut the stack in half diagonally (slicing the sandwich before you fill it makes for fewer crumbs).
Now tint the frosting by stirring in a few drops of yellow and red food coloring (more yellow than red) to get a shade of orange that resembles American cheese.
Carefully spread frosting between the slices of each half sandwich. If you mound the frosting on one slice, then top it with the other and gently press down, the frosting will ooze out a bit and look all the more like melted cheese. Makes one sandwich.