These Bomb Pop cupcakes are... the bomb

For those of you that grew up chasing down the ice cream man, this post may bring back some delicious and refreshing memories.  I grew up in a fairly rural area - although the ice cream man was not likely to brave the gravel road to my house just to sell me a Push-Up, I did occasionally encounter him while in town or hanging out at a friend's house.

However, in elementary school there was a magical time of day in the afternoon when we could buy ice cream.  The selection would vary, but it was always a treat to get a Good Humor bar (Strawberry Shortcake, of course).  On really special days, you could score a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar (you know, the one with the chocolate ears) or a Snickers ice cream bar.  Another special treat is the one that inspired today's post... the Bomb Pop (sometimes known as the Rocket Pop)!  With multiple flavors and a patriotic flair, how could you go wrong?

When looking for cupcake inspiration for the 4th of July, I stumbled across this gem over at Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.  Lemon-lime cupcakes with three kinds of frosting in Bomb Pop flavors?  Sign me up and seal the deal with some patriotic cupcake liners from Michael's.

I did make a few modifications to the recipe, especially with regard to the cupcake side of things.  I decided to use the lemon cupcake recipe I made the other day (for these delicious lemon cupcakes with blackberry buttercream).  In order to capture the lime flavor, I simply substituted lime juice for the lemon juice in that recipe.  It worked out quite well.

Once the cupcakes cooled, I poked some holes in the top.  Then I carefully poured a mixture of raspberry jello and hot water over the top.  I was a little worried about making a giant mess, so I did put some foil under the cooling racks to catch any overflow.  I didn't end up using all of the jello mixture because I was a bit nervous about what it would do to the consistency of the cupcakes.  As it turns out, I shouldn't have worried - the jello mixture was a fun surprise and added some great moistness to the cake.  Next time I'd use it all.

 With regard to the frosting, I stuck pretty close to the recipe - I saw no reason to mess with the yummy combo of raspberry, lime, and cherry.

First up, the raspberry buttercream... with blue food coloring, of course.  (Related thought: why is blue raspberry such a common flavor when raspberries are not at all blue?  Apparently I wasn't the only one who was curious...)

As you can tell from this photo, my decorating skills leave something to be desired.  I'm not a whiz at piping on buttercream.  I used disposable bags from Wilton and a basic leaf tip for these.  Nothing too fancy.  One of these days I'll figure out how to perform feats of buttercream brilliance.  This was not that day.

Anyway, the blue is followed by a ring of lime frosting and some cherry frosting in the center.  I was unable to find cherry extract at my grocery store, so I had to pull a MacGyver for that portion of the recipe.  In order to make the red frosting cherry-licious, I bought a can of cherries and made a cherry puree to use instead of the extract.  I think it probably made the buttercream a tad runnier than I would have preferred, so next time I would play with the proportions a little to account for that.

In any event, here's the finished product:

I have to say, these were pretty scrumptious. (You can find the full instructions at Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.) They were so good that I'm considering devoting the summer to a series of cupcakes inspired by ice cream.  Could be a fun experiment, no?

So, let me know your favorite ice cream treats in the comments... perhaps they'll inspire a future post!

By the time we're through, the ice cream man will be searching for your cupcakes instead of you chasing him down for a popsicle...