St. Patrick's Day Special

Green!! That's all I could think of when I thought about today. I had make something good, something green, and most of all, something AMAZING! Well it happened when the Food Librarian decided to post her "Girl Scout Thin Mint Chocolate Cupcakes", I knew I had to make them.
So starting out with that, I thought, yes a cream cheese frosting would be nice...but green peppermint frosting would be even better. So I found another recipe for that...

But here are the recipes in full form and with pictures.

Cupcake:
(modified from here)
Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 sleeve of crushed thin mints
1 teaspoon of pure peppermint extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl.
Add eggs, warm water, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla, and mix until smooth, about 3 minutes.
Then add in peppermint extract and the crushed thin mints.
Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl to assure batter is well mixed.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each 1/2 full (approximately 2 tablespoons full).
Bake until tops spring back when touched, about 15 minutes, rotating pan once if needed.
Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

Crushing the thin mints while watching a tivo-ed episode of Jon and Kate plus Eight.
yay finished when the episode was done...

Then the frosting:
(modified from here)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
6 tbsp. soft butter
2 tbsp. cream or milk
1 tsp. peppermint extract
Green food coloring
Directions:
Mix the butter and 1/2 cup of powdered sugar.
Then add 1 tbsp of cream and mix.
Add the rest of the powdered sugar, the peppermint extract, and the rest of the cream and throughly mix.
After, add green food coloring until the color is the one desired.
Putting it together:
Frost the cupcakes.
Break the thin mints into fourths, and place decoratively...Or crush some thin mints, and sprinkle onto the frosting...
<3