I have to admit, I kind of went off the rails this week. Just stay with me on this one, but I decided to try a flavor combination I’ve only had while snacking or attending a barbecue—except this time it was in cupcake form.
Sometimes I find myself going down a Pinterest rabbit hole and find all kinds of strange recipes. This week, when I spotted a recipe for Mountain Dew and Doritos cupcakes, I was intrigued, despite also being very skeptical of putting pop and chips into my dessert.
I decided to give it a shot anyhow and took them to a get-together with friends so they could try my crazy experiment, too.
Before you get completely turned off by the idea, just hear me out on two things. One: they were actually really good. The flavor combination actually works, and I have several test subjects who agree with me. Two: if you don’t really want to put chips on cupcakes, the cupcakes themselves are a nice, lemon-lime flavor, so they’re still worth making, along with the buttercream frosting.
This recipe comes from the blog “Fairytale Frosting.” Find it at http://fairytalefrosting.blogspot.com/2012/07/mountain-dew-and-doritos-cake.html. I actually ended up using a box of vanilla pudding because the store was out of lemon, and I added in one of those packets of lemonade mix that you put into a water bottle to make a single serving to get more lemon flavor. I also halved the frosting recipe and had plenty, but if you want to pipe it on there nice and high, I’d double what I have below.
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Mountain Dew
and Doritos Cupcakes
Cupcakes Ingredients
1 box lemon cake (I used a 15.25-ounce mix)
1 box lemon pudding mix (I used a 1-ounce mix)
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1-1/4 cups Mountain Dew
Buttercream Ingredients
1 stick butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons Mountain Dew
1 scant teaspoon lemon juice
1 scant teaspoon lime juice
green food coloring
1 bag nacho cheese Doritos (for topping)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare two cupcake tins with liners.
For the cupcakes, beat together the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs and oil until smooth. Pour the Mountain Dew in slowly—it will fizz up. Stir until smooth and distribute the mix evenly between the 24 liners (you’ll fill them about 3/4 full).
Bake for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean.
Let them cool completely before frosting them.
For the buttercream, begin by beating the butter until it’s fluffy. Beat in the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, then add the Mountain Dew, lemon juice and lime juice. If the consistency is too thick, add a bit more Mountain Dew. If it’s runny, add some more powdered sugar.
Tint the frosting with some green food coloring to get to the perfect Mountain Dew hue.
Top each cupcake with frosting and a Dorito chip. (Wait to put the chips on until right before serving. They’ll get soggy in Tupperware pretty quickly.)
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I confess this is a bit of a weird recipe, but I thought these cupcakes were pretty good. The cake comes out really nice and fluffy, and I also know some younger folks who would love these for a birthday party or youth group snack.
And one positive is that I do know when it’s time to stop in my Pinterest surfing. When I ran into a recipe for a bologna cake, I decided maybe it was time to log off and join the real world.
Then again, I do kind of like bologna….
Lindsey Young is managing editor of The Clarion, the Kansas Publishing Ventures newspaper in Andale. She can be reached at lindseyclarion@gmail.com.
