Halloween is the only time of year where you can eat eyeballs and fingers and not get arrested for cannibalism. Thank goodness I mean those kinds of eyeballs and fingers... (jelly eyeballs, cookie fingers etc...) Although I do love the eccentricities of Halloween costumes and lore, I have never found gory desserts appetising. I must have my desserts be equally as appealing to the eye as they are to the stomach. If you feel the same, these Witch Hat Chocolate Cupcakes are a more (shall I say) approachable Halloween dessert...just as delicious as they look. (No witch toes hidden within, I promise...)
Witch Hat Chocolate Cupcakes
*I tried two chocolate cupcake recipes from MarthaStewart.com and preferred the following, with some Haut Appétit additions...
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup hot water
3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 Tblsp vanilla
1 Tblsp espresso (or 1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder)
1 cup sour cream, room temp
Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tins with paper liners (I used gold).
Whisk together the cocoa and hot water.
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt (if you don't have espresso, this is when you whisk in espresso powder).
In a heavy saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter and sugar, stirring continually to combine. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl (stand mixer bowl). Beat until the mixture becomes cool for approx 4mins. Add the eggs one at a time until each is incorporated. Add vanilla, cocoa mixture, and espresso (if not using espresso powder) until combined.
Divide batter evening among muffin tins, filling to 3/4 full. Bake for about 20mins, and rotate tins halfway through baking.
Frosting:
Any chocolate buttercream frosting will do. I actually ran out of time on this project and ran to the store to buy ready made chocolate frosting (blasphemy I know!!)
Try this chocolate buttercream frosting here.
Witch Hat Decorating:
To make the witch hats on the cupcakes, simply take a pastry bag with a round tip (see below), and fill the pastry bag with chocolate frosting. Pipe little dots of the frosting onto the cupcake, pulling the piping tip away quickly to get a flipped hat-tip effect. All you need to know about pastry bags and piping tips, visit Wilton.com
Et voilà!
Nothing says Halloween like black... My Rag & Bone black hat is a must for fall and borders on witchy. Thierry Lasry sunglasses, and fur shawl.
.jpg)
These cuppies look so delicious...and chocolatey! :-) I like the way you decorated them, would love to try this recipe soon! Oh and that Rag & Bone hat is super cool!
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Spain!
Your cupcakes look witchy!!! But have you thought how you are going to serve them. You need a cool cupcake stand ; may be something in white with a golden border and a tiered model will look good with your brown colored cakes.
ReplyDelete