(relaxing upbeat music) - Greetings, my beautiful lovelies. It's Emmy. How are you? It's great to see you and welcome back. Today, I'm going to be making
a batch of chocolate cupcakes but they have a hidden
ingredient and it is this: this is a can of seasoned mixed greens. And on the side of the can there is a recipe for "Not
Just Chocolate Cupcakes." They're not just chocolate cupcakes because it contains a can of green. We're going to be pureeing
the greens together with some other ingredients
to make chocolate cupcakes. I'm making this because I want to know
what these tastes like. So this will not be the
first time I've tried ingredients that we don't
typically find in sweets. I've tried a sauerkraut cake. I've tried hard-boiled eggs in cookies. I've tried black beans in brownies, all to varying degrees of success. I'll put links down below to those videos in case you missed them. But I have never used canned
greens in a sweet before. So let's go ahead and make this. This is "Glory Foods' seasoned
Southern-style mixed greens Not Just Chocolate Cupcakes." So here is the can of greens. And here is the recipe
right here on the back. So this recipe is super simple. I think the most complicated thing is probably making the frosting. We're basically going to
puree everything in a blender. It kind of reminds me of a book that was published a while back. I think it was called "Deceptive Foods" or "Deceptively Simple" -- something to that effect. It was published probably
over 10 years ago now, but it was about incorporating vegetables into your children's food by
pureeing it and disguising it. My youngest doesn't
really like vegetables. My oldest loves them and
if he doesn't like them, I just ask him to try it. And if he doesn't like to try it, then I ask him just to
take one little bite of whatever green it might be. I completely understand and empathize with my youngest. As a little one, I
detested anything green -- most vegetables, actually in general, I did not like, and
fruits for that matter. My youngest does love fruit,
so he eats a ton of fruit. But I remember having these
standoffs with my parents about eating greens and
it was such a struggle. And I have decided not to have
those battles with my child. I encourage him to eat at least one little piece of something. He gets plenty of fiber
and I just don't want to have those battles
because I remember greens in particular tasted so bad for me. There are a couple of
vegetables that he will eat. And so I offer those. He likes spinach and
yeah, I'm not a huge fan of disguising greens in food... that kind of deal with my kids. I am grown now and I love
greens of all different kinds. I love vegetables. And I am thinking that by
my example, that my child, as his taste buds evolve,
and as he grows that he too will come around to eating
vegetables with gusto. That's my little theory. Alrighty. Back to making Not Just
Chocolate Cupcakes. Okay. We're gonna need a blender. Oh, behind me, my oven is
preheating at 350 degrees. Actually, before we blend,
we need to rinse the greens. We need to drain the mixed greens and add fresh water and drain again. So let's do that. ♪ Do do do do, do do do do do do ♪ All right, let's open this up. I've never had canned green before. We love greens. We love kale, chard, spinach. We've got spinach that's
ready to harvest in my garden as we speak. All right. So there are the greens. Looking very green. Let's give them a taste. I'm curious to see how seasoned these are. Here we go. Itadakimasu. Mm. Actually pretty smoky. Very tender. Hmm, and very metallic tasting. (chuckles) Mhmm. Not surprising because they're tinned, but they're not very salty. There's definitely salt
in there, but, mhmm. Mostly it has kind of smokey
flavor that finishes metallic. But hopefully with the rinsing we can get rid of that
extra metallic flavor. And maybe some of that smokiness, although that might go
well with the chocolate. Let's see. So greens are very tender though. So I think blending, this
is gonna be just fine. Dump that into my bowl. That's actually a lot of greens. And now that I've drained them, it looks like there's
a bit of pepper flakes in there, I think. But... not detecting any heat. Little bit of acid though. Okay, now we're going to rinse these. That's a lot of greens. So that's how many ounces of greens? One pound 11 ounces. Wow. We've rinsed the greens
and now we're going to let them drain. To our blender, we're
going to add the greens. That's quite a bit. It fills the entire pitcher. Okay, one cup of apple sauce. And a half cup of water. Cup with this. And we're gonna puree
that until it's smooth. It's gonna be a little loud. (machine buzzing) All right. It's a pretty thick mixture. Now, pour our puree into a bowl. Now we're gonna add three eggs. (egg shell cracks) And I think I'm gonna
use a whisk for this part and whisk that in. Okay, I wonder how this would bake up. This would just be kind of a, kind of a, maybe, it might puff up a little bit like a souffle or something. I think it would need some salt. Okay. Now we're gonna add one
box of chocolate cake mix. So this will give us our leavening
and our chocolate flavor. And of course our flour. Boop! Actually my spatula of choice is this. I love this whisk. And then after we combine this, I think that's it for the batter. It's kind of gray in color. Interesting. And I definitely smell the
greens as I'm stirring this. I smell the chocolate, but
I smell the greens as well. That kind of smoky,
canned vegetable smell. That's that for the batter. Make sure we get all the way to the bottom to incorporate everything. Now I have, I have muffin pans lined
with paper muffin liners and we're going to scoop these in. So I'm gonna use a muffin scoop and I'm gonna fill these
two thirds of the way up. That's actually pretty full, but. Gosh, if these taste good, boy. My kids will come home from school, mama, what did you make? Special muffins, special cupcakes. My kids are kind of similar to me in the sense that when it
comes to baked goods or cakes they're not huge fans of the frosting. So this recipe comes with
a frosting recipe as well, but I'm gonna go easy on some of them because we don't like a lot
of frosting on our cakes. All right. So I'm gonna pop these into
a preheated 350 degree oven and bake them for 16 to 18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean then we're gonna let these cool completely before we frost them. Okay. See you in a little bit. (light playful music) Alrighty, my lovelies. The cupcakes have come out of the oven. They are completely cooled. And it's now time for
us to make our frosting. In this bowl, I have one
brick or eight ounces of cream cheese that
is at room temperature. To that, we're going
to add five tablespoons of room temperature butter. (Emmy vocalizing) It's kind of warm today. Let's get all that butter into the bowl. Half a cup of cocoa powder. I'm gonna give that an initial cream. And then we're going to
add our powdered sugar. Here we go. Oh my gosh. (chuckles) This is on low power, this machine. (machine buzzing) So when you do this, don't add in all your
cocoa powder at one time. Okay? Okay. Oh my gosh. All right, here we go. And, 'cause I like it, I'm
going to add about a teaspoon, about a half a teaspoon
of vanilla extract. (machine buzzing) And while this is going, I'm gonna slowly add the powdered sugar. I've got four cups here. Now, to keep my bowl from moving around, add this little thing down below. All right, continue. (Emmy laughs) All right. So this is getting very thick and it's going all over the place. So I'm just gonna rest that for a minute. And I think I might be able to use just the spatula to get the rest in. Because this is going to make a mess, because this is only going to get thicker with each addition of powdered sugar. So I think we've got the
initial kind of creaming of the cream cheese and the butter, and we'll just sift in the
powdered sugar as we go along. Okay. And because powder sugar
does tend to clump up, I'm gonna sift it in to get
rid of any of those lumps. Yeah, we can just mix it in. We can earn our frosting. Alrighty, it's looking very thick. So we're gonna continue doing
this until all four cups of the powdered sugar is incorporated. And then I'm going to
place it into a piping bag, fitted with a 1M tip and then we're gonna frost our cupcakes. Cupcakes are cooled, piping bag is filled, and now we can decorate our cupcakes. I'm just gonna make a
little swirl right on top. All right. Get the frosting. Okay, here we go. This piping tip is so great. It's super simple and easy to use and makes super cute cupcakes. (laughs) Look! Perfect. Would you should think that there's like a pound greens in this cupcake? Nope, nope, nope. Sneaky, isn't it? So pretty. Alrighty, my lovelies. I have completely frosted all of my cakes and there is the perfect
amount of frosting for the number of cupcakes. I got 24 cupcakes and
they're all beautifully iced. Now finally, for the moment of truth. Let's give these a taste. I think what I'm gonna do first
is taste a plain one first and then we'll taste it with frosting. So here's just the plain
cupcake and let's give it a go. It seems very, very, very moist. And let's tear it open. No hint of greens in there. If you look carefully, it seems to have a slight tinge of green. Slight. And that's only because I
know what went into this. I think if I were just eating
this, I wouldn't even notice. Would you notice? Nope. Very wet. Alrighty. Let's give this a go. Itadakimasu! Mm. That's a very, very moist
cake, like squishy and damp. Look. Very wet. Fully cooked, but very wet. These are at room temperature. Perhaps if they were refrigerated, they would be a little bit more, less wet. And now that I've taken a bite, I can taste some of that smokiness that I tasted in the greens. Mhmm. Definitely. There's some chocolate in there, but I can definitely taste the smokiness. I can't taste any of the greens at all. Just that kind of hammy
(laughs) flavor to it. It's not unpleasant. And I think once we have
it with the frosting, it might not even be noticeable
and it might be complimented by the sweet chocolatey
flavors in the frosting. But as it is just as a plain cake, I don't think it's all that great. Alrighty, finally. Moment of truth. Mm, mhmm. Yes. Once you have that frosting on top, it tastes 100% like a birthday cake. That frosting is actually delicious. I know I said earlier that I'm
not a huge fan of frosting, but here it works really well because the cake itself is not very sweet. We added a lot of greens to that cake mix so that sugar has been dispersed, but the frosting on the
other hand, is very rich and very sweet and goes
really well with the cake. And because the frosting is so good, you're not distracted by
that kind of hammy flavor or the over kind of
wetness of the cake itself. It's actually very good
together like this. Mhmm. Yeah, so I just looked
on the can here to see what type of mixed greens are in here and it lists turnips and mustard. So turnip and mustard green cupcakes are actually pretty good if you have a really great
chocolate frosting on top. (Emmy chuckles) Mhmm. Having said that, I think two
things might help this recipe. Baking it a little bit longer. I baked these for 20
minutes because my cupcakes were rather large and my
toothpick came out clean. I would even go a couple minutes extra just to get some of that
extra moisture out of it. Also, I'm gonna try refrigerating these. And I think that will help set up the cake a little bit more and make it a little less kind of just wet spongy. And besides that, I wouldn't change the
frosting recipe whatsoever. The frosting is absolutely delicious. So there you have it, Not
Just Chocolate Cupcakes. Not half bad. The texture I think is
the most off-putting part of the cake. Besides that, the flavor
is actually pretty good. Alrighty, my lovelies, thanks
so much for joining me. Check out my website. I'll include a printable recipe there and thanks for joining me. I hope you enjoyed that one. I hope you learned something. Please share this video with your friends. Follow me on social media,
like this video, subscribe, and I shall see you in the next one. Toodaloo, take care. Bye! (upbeat playful music) Greens,
(Emmy clapping) in my cake!
