Junior Mint Mini's- Cake Version ⋆ Biscuits to Brownies

junior mint cupcakes image for pinterest

Who doesn’t love Junior Mints! I’m definitely one who does but honestly, I try to stay away from eating too many of them, they are just so hard to resist. However, everything in moderation is how I like to roll. So with that, I came up with these Junior Mint Mini Cakes to satisfy my craving of chocolate, cake, and mint.

Gosh, I have been eating Junior Mints since I was kid and have always loved them. Especially, going to a movie and cruising the snack counter and always picking those as my go-to movie treat. Looking back, I think I did eat the whole box. Love the box too with the green, black, and white signature colors. Makes for great advertising doesn’t it?

In fact, my whole family loves them as well. We have this love affair with chocolate and mint to include ice cream, candy, brownies, and cookies (Girl Scout.. wink wink.) Whoever came up with this combo is genius!

Junior Mini’s Components

For the Junior Mint Mini’s, they have three basic components that are very simple to make:

Chocolate cake (mini cupcakes)
Mint cream filling
Chocolate glaze

Cake

For the cake portion, I just take a favorite chocolate cupcake recipe and divide it in half. You won’t need the whole recipe and will have some leftover mini cupcakes that you can use or freeze for later.

Chocolate sour cream cupcake recipe is what I used here. I love the moistness the sour cream adds to this recipe, as well as the color. I bake them off in a mini cupcake pan and cool completely.

USE your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe in a mini cupcake pan.

Junior Mint Filling

This filling is so incredibly awesome. For the life of me, I cannot remember where I got it but I made this years ago for a candy theme mini cupcake event. Can I tell you, it taste exactly like what you eat in those awesome junior mints. Super creamy and minty, its just hands down delicious. Wow!

Basically, you throw everything in a bowl and mix with a stand/hand mixer. Finished mixture is neither too firm or too soft.

Here is the neat twist, to get that perfect topping for the mini cupcakes, I take the filling and roll into small balls and place into a mini half sphere silicone mold and freeze for about an hour or so. They pop right out and sit perfectly on top of the cupcake. No silicone pan, see below for alternative method.

Recipe-Filling

Junior Mint Filling

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp shortening
1/2 oz cream cheese
1/4 tsp peppermint extract
2 tsp corn syrup
2 1/4 tsp water
1/8 tsp vanilla

Everything goes into the bowl and gets mixed together. Super simple.

This recipe is scaled to make about 12-13 mini spheres. If you don’t have a silicone mold, you could just roll into mini balls, the size of the top of the cupcake and just gently press down to make flat on the bottom.

Chocolate Glaze

Last, but not least is the super yummy glaze to go on top which totally completes this delicious Junior Mint experience. This recipe only contains two ingredients:

Dark Chocolate Chips (You can use semisweet too)
Vegetable Oil

It makes a great chocolate shell. Remember the stuff you can buy from the store that hardens once you drizzle it on ice cream? Yes!! This is the homemade equivalent. Love using dark chocolate here because the Junior Mints have that dark chocolate coating. BTW, I’ve become such a fan of dark chocolate lately.

Recipe-Glaze

Dark Chocolate Glaze

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
2 1/4 tsp vegetable oil

Super simple, both go into a small bowl and microwave 30 seconds to a minute till you mix to get a creamy glaze. Check after 30 seconds though. Also, make sure all the chocolate chips are melted completely but not too hot where it scorches. I like this to be fairly warm so when I start dipping the cupcakes into the chocolate, it will not solidify too fast.

The trick here is the vegetable oil, is allows the chocolate to produce a hard shell texture.

Assembling

Once the cupcakes and filling are done everything gets assembled, 1-2-3.

I take the cupcakes and place them on a plate, then dab/pipe a small amount of icing on top. This will hold the cream filling spheres in place when they are dipped into the glaze.

Next, I take the filling spheres out of the freezer and place on top of each cupcakes. Pressing down gently to adhere to the icing. These get placed in freezer for about 20-30 minutes to make sure they are firm for the dipping process.

chocolate cupcakes with a mint cream topping

Last, the chocolate glaze is made and I dip the top of each cupcake into the glaze to cover the filling, making sure no white is showing by rolling around in the glaze.

The shell will start to harden very soon. I place them in the refrigerator to firm up for about 30 minutes to an hour, then allow them to sit at room temperature 15 minutes or so.