Super cupcake bowl

January 22, 2018 9:53 AM

I've been tasked with making two dozen cupcakes for a Super Bowl party, a dozen for each team. Please help me with ideas for flavors!

The usual way to go would be to use each team's colors, but I'd like to bake cupcakes that are indicative of New England/ Philadelphia cuisine, city/state puns, or (bonus!) an intersection of flavor and color to represent each team.

So far, New England seems to be easy where flavoring is concerned: Boston cream pie, coffee milk, fluffernutter, maple bacon? Other suggestions?

Philadelphia is a little harder to pin down, so I'd welcome flavor ideas to represent the Eagles. The cupcake could also have fillings.

Bonus points for:

- A flavor that can be easily modified from a vanilla or yellow cake base
- Intersection of a typical local flavor with the team colors
- Team puns/ historical facts


Please, NO chocolate unless it's an absolutely brilliant idea. I'm also not a fan of using toppers or fondant decorations. Ideally, the frosting would be buttercream (cream cheese is least ideal.) No savory "cupcakes" - there might be people willing to get creative with clam chowder or cheese steak, but that would not be this particular group!

Thank you in advance!

posted by Everydayville to Food & Drink (27 answers total)

Best answer: Butterscotch Krimpet flavor for Philadelphia!
posted by snaw at 10:05 AM on January 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah, I was going to suggest picking anything from Tastykake's product lineup. For some reason I associate coffee cake with Philly, too.

Whatever you make for Philly, though, you're pretty much required to throw them at other people.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:08 AM on January 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Make the Philly ones from scratch but use a mix for New England. You know, cheat.

(settle down, New Englanders... it's a joke. I'm a long-time fair weather Pats fan. Go Brady! Get the ball into the goal a bunch of times! )
posted by bondcliff at 10:16 AM on January 22, 2018 [18 favorites]

I'm Philly adjacent. A cream cheese based icing or filing for Philadelphia Cream Cheese? (Even though it's not actually Philly based anymore). Salted Caramel icing with crumbled Pretzels on top, that could be a riff on soft pretzels. Peanut Chews and Peeps are also local.
posted by jennypower at 10:19 AM on January 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

Yes to coffee cake for Philadelphia as well. Also, Peanut Chews are a regional candy that's not too hard to get a hold of, and would be totally delicious chopped up and added to yellow cake with a peanut frosting (and maybe some chocolate ganache if you want to go there).

on preview: jinx!
posted by snaw at 10:19 AM on January 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Something pretzel-related for philly maybe? I know you said cream cheese was the least desirable but I think cream cheese frosting with pretzel bites/dust would do it for me.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:23 AM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also, maybe you can crush up NECCO wafers to put on top of the New England ones.
posted by bondcliff at 10:24 AM on January 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Boston Cream Pie cupcakes?
posted by jeather at 10:29 AM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

SCRAPPLE sorry gross
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:39 AM on January 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh you said New England Boston Cream Pie. But I reconsidered and I might go with cranberry, because it's a bit different.
posted by jeather at 10:56 AM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Some flavor ideas for New England -

-Indian pudding
-Rum or molasses (just last week was the 99th anniversary of the great Boston Molasses Flood!)
-Fig Newton (locally produced in Cambridge until Nabisco bought out the company, and the only remaining product from their original lineup which were all named after Massachusetts towns)
-Fluff (invented in Somerville)
-Squirrel Nut Zippers (peanuts and caramel, originally produced in Roxbury and eventually made their way back to Cambridge, made by the Squirrel company - hence the name. Now produced by Necco)
-Junior Mints (still to this day produced in Cambridge)
-"Coffee Regular" - Dunkin' Donuts coffee, two sugar, two cream. Do with that what you will.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:57 AM on January 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

Cranberry for new England and shoofly for Philadelphia.
posted by brujita at 10:59 AM on January 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Red velvet cupcakes scooped out and filled with fluff, top with Blue Line blueberry icing.
Indian pudding or brown bread cupcakes with a cider icing - Reduce fresh apple cider quite a bit, use as liquid in buttercream.
posted by theora55 at 11:01 AM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm really digging the Goldenberg peanut chews idea. Other than that...

Cannoli?
ROCKY road?

Yellow cake w/a green marbled swirl through it, But top it with orange frosting evocative of the sun, because it's always sunny in Philadelphia?
posted by kimberussell at 11:40 AM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

If you can make it work, throwing big eyes and some sort of wings on the cupcakes so they double as Superb Owls would crack me up.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:45 AM on January 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Root beer has Philadelphian origins (commercially, anyway) - and Smitten Kitchen's root beer float cupcakes are very cute and easy to make. Though I usually make my own whipped cream, I feel like using the canned stuff would probably look even better on these.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:11 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: There are some classic desserts that were inherited from the Pennsylvania Dutch that would make yummy cupcake flavors:

Shoofly pie: A molasses and cinnamon buttercream frosting on a yellow cupcake topped with a piece of pie crust.

Funnel cake: A cinnamon sugar buttercream frosting on a yellow cupcake topped with a piece of funnel cake.

Angel food cake: You can just follow a recipe for angel food cake and put it in cupcake tins instead of a bundt pan. Make a light whipped vanilla frosting and top it with berries.
posted by Katie8709 at 12:27 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also, please use just a little crisco in your buttercream for the Philadelphia cupcakes.
posted by snaw at 1:00 PM on January 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: bondcliff: Make the Philly ones from scratch but use a mix for New England. You know, cheat.
snaw: Also, please use just a little crisco in your buttercream for the Philadelphia cupcakes.

Legit LOL.

Thanks for all these wonderful ideas! Lots to think about. I like the idea of using cranberry in the NE cupcakes because it can double as the "red"in the team color. Peanut chews-inspired cupcakes are the top contender right now for Philly...
posted by Everydayville at 1:08 PM on January 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

Philly cheesecake? You know, instead of Philly cheesesteak.
I love the Regular Coffee suggestion (it's really the most New England thing ever) but cranberries are good, too. Or Boston cream pie.
posted by emd3737 at 1:27 PM on January 22, 2018

Tea-flavored for Boston.
posted by sciencegeek at 3:40 PM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Crushed pretzels are great for Philly, but I also really like Shake Shack's concrete that consists, in part, of cannoli shards instead. (Because Rold Gold don't bear much similarity to Philly soft pretzels...) Maybe frosting based on cannoli filling?
posted by supercres at 4:00 PM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Are Irish Potato Candy still a thing in Philadelphia? Because that would translate well to a cupcake ... coconut cake base with cinnamon/cocoa dusted frosting.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 11:28 PM on January 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

Holy crap Rube R Nekker - I had almost completely forgotten about buying those last year at Reading Terminal Market - that's a great idea.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 7:16 AM on January 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Irish potato candy cupcakes sound delicious! We may have a winner...

(I'll mark best answer after the Super Bowl!)
posted by Everydayville at 11:10 AM on January 23, 2018

I'm totally obsessed with this ask (if that wasn't obvious). Make Irish Potato Candy footballs as toppers for whatever Philadelphia cupcakes you make. They already look sort of football-ish and would go with pretty much all the Philly flavor themes suggested (maybe not scrapple...).
posted by snaw at 6:56 PM on January 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Update: I used the suggestions here to poll my friends and the chosen flavors were Boston cream pie and Butterscotch Krimpet cupcakes. Went over fabulously!

All other flavor suggestions have been duly noted for future batches of cupcakes!
posted by Everydayville at 11:51 AM on February 5, 2018