With the release of Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier on DVD and BluRay (September 9,) everyone in my household is beyond excited to have a fun movie night filled with action, adventure and superheroes!
As it’s been awhile since we’ve seen the original Captain America, a prequel movie night was in order to fully maximize our fun. These nights are a great way to create an atmosphere at home that rivals that of a family outing to the movie theater. So, of course, family movie nights around our home (as you may already know) require that little something “extra” to truly make it a special, memorable night that the kids look forward to each time. This time I decided to have some fun with M&M’s to make superhero-worthy treats.
This dictated a trip to Walmart to snag a copy of Captain America: The First Avenger for our movie collection and some supplies to whip up snacks. As two of us in our house prefer chocolate and the other two prefer vanilla with chocolate embellishments, I decided to do like a “superhero versus supervillian” dessert duo with mini cupcakes and brownie bites.
TIP: Right now you can Save $5.00 on any two (2) M&M’s Brand Chocolate Candies (15.4 oz or larger) with the purchase of Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier DVD at Walmart with this special coupon: http://coupons.walmart.com/?
For the cupcakes and brownie bites, I selected M&M’s Mega and Mini sizes to mix into the treats and to help decorate. The brownie bites are my standard go-to scratch mix (see recipe below) and a chocolate frosting. For the cupcakes I used a traditional yellow cake mix with a white frosting. You can certainly make all of your own mixes and frosting, too, or purchase a brownie mix rather than making them from scratch. Whatever suits your style, the end result inevitably equals YUM!
To capture the superhero (Captain America) versus Red Skull (villain,) I separated the M&M’s out into red and blue piles (which, by the way, leaves you with some great autumn colored M&M’s of orange, yellow, green and brown to set aside fall baking!)
Quick & Easy “Red Skull” Brownie Bites
1/2 cup red Plain Chocolate Mega M&M’s
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large mixing bowl, add flour, cocoa, butter, sugars, eggs, oil and vanilla. Mix on low speed with mixer (or mix by hand) thoroughly until all ingredients are fully incorporated and blended well. Add M&M’s and gently fold into mix.
In a pre-greased miniature cupcake pan, fill cupcake wells 3/4-full with brownie mix. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until brownies are full set. Remove from oven, cool on rack for 10 minutes. Remove brownie bites from pan and cool on wire rack an additional 15 minutes or until fully cool to the touch.
Optionally: Frost with chocolate frosting and top with red Plain Chocolate Mini M&M’s.
For the Captain America cupcakes, I followed the same basic process as the brownies using the manufacturer’s instructions on the cake mix and then added a 1/2 cup of Plain Chocolate Mini M&M’s to the mix prior to baking. The topping was white frosting with red and blue Mini M&M’s embellishments. Half the fun was decorating and my kids had a great time joining in and coming up with various All-American heroic patterns like flag patterns and those that mimicked Captain America’s shield.
In the end we had a round of great treats for Captain America family movie night fun that would satisfy all the taste-buds in our home!
Of course, the superhero had to win the snack wars…
And in the end, even had a little help from superhero friends!
You can have even more fun during your family movie night by visiting heroeseatmms.com where you can take quizzes to see which super hero or M&M you are (and you can download that coupon for $5 off Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier when you purchase qualifying M&M’s packs!)
TIP: For your Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier family night, you can easily change up your villain brownie bites to “Black Widow Spider Bites” by adding chocolate covered pretzel legs and red M&M’s Mini eyes (as pictured below.)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup red plain chocolate mini M&M’s
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/3 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
- 1 tsp vanilla
- chocolate covered pretzels
- chocolate frosting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a large mixing bowl, add flour, cocoa, butter, sugars, eggs, oil and vanilla. Mix on low speed with mixer (or mix by hand) thoroughly until all ingredients are fully incorporated and blended well. Add M&M’s and gently fold into mix.
- In a pre-greased miniature cupcake pan, fill cupcake wells 3/4-full with brownie mix. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until brownies are full set. Remove from oven, cool on rack for 10 minutes. Remove brownie bites from pan and cool on wire rack an additional 15 minutes or until fully cool to the touch
- Frost lightly with chocolate frosting.
- Break chocolate covered pretzels in pieces to form "legs" of spider. Stick pretzel spider leg into frosted sides of brownie.
- Embellish with red mini M&M "eyes" to complete the spider look.
- Serve and enjoy the smiles!
Be the M&M recipe hero in your home! Whatever way you choose to celebrate, having a few fun, quick and easy treats always enhances family movie night.
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I love these cupcakes. Guess what we will be doing for Columbus day baking
My boys would love this, they have these Lego characters! Yummy desserts!
Yum those cupcakes look fantastic.My boys are big fans of all the Avengers they would love this kind of movie night.
This are absolutely adorable, and I LOVE the spider. My son would love the Lego guys participating with his dessert as well.
Results say I’m Spider-Man. Responsibility, bravery, and righteousness drive you and Spider-Man. You know that life is not always easy or fair, but you always believe in taking the high road. While you have close friends and family, you are also very content to spend time alone. You love to serve those around you and your friends consider you very giving–of both your time and resources.
Thanks.
partymix25(at)hotmail(dot)com
that looks so good!! i will have to make that with my girls
I got: Mrs. Brown
Drive, Intelligence, and resourcefulness are all words that describe you and Ms. Brown. You love learning and being challenged. When you have a spare minute, you love to grab a book or catch up on recent news. You hate it when people waste your time and are always on the go.
Jesica H.
Woohoo, I got Iron Man!!
You, like Tony Stark, are focused on achievement, ambition, and leaving a lasting legacy. You are very driven and not afraid to set lofty goals for yourself. It is very important that you leave a positive mark on the world. You are not afraid to be loud, and people know when you walk into a room. You are often the life of the party and love to surround yourself with friends.
Jesica H.
Well of course heroes eat m&m’s! The Black Widow Spider Bites would be perfect for a Halloween party!
Those look like some awesome brownies and cupcakes. I love the theme too!
Oh man. I shouldn’t have looked at this when I have a sweets craving going on! #client
I took the quiz and got Yellow, doesn’t really fit, but some things are accurate. Those cupcakes look amazing. Thank you for the wonderful giveaway!
I love this spider and what fun to have some spider bake offs with the grand kids.