Iron Cupcake Earth - January Entry

The 3rd round of ironcupcake earth is on now and this month the theme was 'Winter Warm Up'. The idea was to make anything that can warm you up so I decided to make hot chocolate cupcakes......in my opinion there's nothing better than a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day! To make the cupcakes look authentic, I baked them in an oven proof cup, then added a swirl of chocolate and rum buttercream frosting to the top and two little marshmallows.....YUM!

If you want to recreate these cupcakes, here's the recipe:

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

• 375g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 350g brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 250g plain flour (sifted)
• 2 tsp baking powder (sifted)
• 50g cocoa (sifted)
• 200ml skim milk

Rum and Chocolate Buttercream

• 120g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 200g icing sugar (sifted)
• 3 tbs skim milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 100g milk chocolate
• 100g dark chocolate
• 2 tbs dark rum

Preheat the oven to 190C. Beat butter and sugar together with an electric mixer for 7 minutes until light and fluffy. Next add the eggs one at a time mixing well after each addition. In a separate bowl, mix the sifted dry ingredients together and then fold them into the sugar/butter mixture before adding the milk. Mix all of the ingredients well then spoon the mixture into oven proof cupcakes or cupcake cases (about 3/4 full to leave room for the mixture to rise). Bake the cupcakes for ~20 minutes then leave to cool on a wire rack before frosting.

To make the buttercream, beat the icing sugar, butter, vanilla essence and milk with an electric mixer until the mixture is fluffy and light in colour (takes about 10 ninutes). In the meantime melt the dark and milk chocolate together and allow to cool slightly before adding to the rest of the mixture and beating well to combine all of the ingredients. Lastly stir in the rum, then pipe or spread the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes.

Voting will be held from 28th January- noon on the 3rd February at http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/. Be sure to stop by at the website and check out all of the great entries and vote for your favourites! We're all competing to win some fantastic prizes, including:

The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
Hello Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
Bella Cupcake Couture
Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne

Thanks for your support!!!