Start filling a large pot with salted water (a good half palm-full of salt, you want your taters to have flavor).
Add the peeled, diced potatoes and the peeled garlic cloves to cold water. Bring potatoes to a boil over medium-high heat for about 15-20 minutes or until they are tender to the back of a butter knife. Drain. Remove the garlic cloves.
While the potatoes are boiling, in a large mixing bowl, add all your cupcake ingredients and mix until well combined. *Ground turkey could definitely be substituted for the beef. **Normally, I would add 1/4 cup chopped onion here, but for this recipe, I used onion powder.
Spray your cupcake pan with some cooking spray.
Take about 1/2 cup of the meat mixture and form it into balls, one ball per cup.
Bake for 10-15 minutes and then let sit for 5 minutes.
While cupcakes are baking, add drained potatoes, milk, butter, salt and pepper back to the pot. Mash all together until desired consistency. I like mine a little lumpy still.
To make it fun and add to the cupcake feel. We added the mashed potatoes to a pastry bag with a big circle tip on the top. You could definitely skip the pastry bag and just add a scoop of potatoes on top, but we wanted the true cupcake experience!
Place cupcake on a plate, frost with the smashed potatoes and add your yummy topping (optional).