Hamburgers and Fries - Cupcake Style!

I was looking around on Bakerella a week or two before father's day, and I saw this hilarious dessert! I have since seen them on quite a few blogs, and I can see why. They are not only a ton of fun to make, but everyone who sees them is completely enamored by them! They are perfect to bring to a BBQ this summer.

The supplies required are actually pretty simple.  To make a dozen hamburger cupcakes, you need one box of white (or yellow) cake mix, one box of brownie mix, one container of vanilla frosting, food coloring, and honey and sesame seeds if you want seeds on top of your bun! Of course all of these can be made from scratch as well, but that would be quite the undertaking time-wise!

One recommendation I will make: we used White Cake mix, and it didn't quite hold up.  I would suggest a yellow or buttermilk cupcake instead, because they will be a bit sturdier and therefore hold up to the cutting and storage process a little bit better.

If you wish to have fries to serve with your burgers, all you need sugar cookie dough, and a pizza cutter to quickly cut out your fries. You can find mix for sugar cookies in the same area as boxed cake mix in the grocery stores.

First we mixed up our cupcake mix and baked our cupcakes in order to let them cool while we prepared everything else. Then for the brownies, we baked them in a 9" x 13" pan (instead of the 8" x 8" pan the box recommended) so that our brownies would be a bit thinner and a better size for the cupcake 'buns'.

While our buns and burgers were baking, we mixed up our icing by separating the container of vanilla icing into three parts.  We then dyed the icing to make ketchup, mustard, and lettuce!

After the cupcakes were cooled, we cut them in half lengthwise with a serrated knife.  To cut out the brownies we used a glass that was a similar size to the width of the cupcakes.  If you have round cookie cutters, these would probably work even better. Then we stopped and had to taste test each and every ingredient. My sugar tolerance reached new highs that day!

We placed each brownie hamburger on the bottom layer of the cupcake, and added our toppings.  We used zip-lock bags for our icing, and cut off one corner.  This made clean-up a breeze for the icing! 

On top of our 'lettuce' went the rest of the cupcake, and we finished them off by brushing the tops with honey and sprinkling on some sesame seeds.

For the fries, we rolled out the sugar cookie dough, and cut it into many strips with a pizza cutter.  Since these cookies are so thin, be sure to really watch them so they do not overcook in the oven. If you wish, you can even sprinkle some sugar on top before placing in the oven for 'salt'.

And before you know it, you have a perfect BBQ dessert!

Since the post on Bakerella was for Father's day, she had some awesome template for a tray and the fry bag that we used.  You can find the trays at different supply stores, and can easily make the fry containers yourself.  For the templates, you can find them on her original post here.