Iron Cupcake: Hot Cocoa Cupcakes…

This is my first iron cupcake challenge and its awesome coz you get to be all creative! The theme for this month is “Winter Warm Up”…which I have to say was very strange for me, seeing that it’s summer over here in South Africa! And on some days reaches over 38°C (100°F)! On the particular day that I baked for this challenge it was one of those days! So there I was, standing in the kitchen and trying to get some good photos before they all started melting on me. Not to mention that the heat makes you so tired and I nearly fell of the chair while standing on it to get some top shots.

Well, enough about my heat induced clumsiness (although I don’t need the heat to be that way)… winter is my favorite season of all, It always reminds me of snuggling up on the couch with a hot steamy mug of hot chocolate… *sigh* why can’t it be winter now!? So I decided to make my cupcakes look like little mugs of hot chocolate… hope you like them!

Our Generous IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers:

• 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
• Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
• Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

Hot Cocoa Cupcakes…

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 3 tbsp veg oil
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 3/4 cup warm water

Preheat oven to 180 C and line cupcake tins with liners
Using an electric mixer, on med speed, combine dry ingredients
Reduce speed to low and add wet ingredients one by one, mixing well to combine.
Fill liners 1/2 full (they rise a lot) and bake for 17-20 min. Cool completely before icing.

Ganache topping:

• 227g dark chocolate (chopped)
• 180ml cream

Bring the cream to the boil in a saucepan
Pour the hot cream over the chocolate in a bowl and let stand for a few min
Whisk the mixture to blend the chocolate and the cream together
Let cool until its at the right consistancy, then spread onto cupcakes.

• Cut up marshmallows or use mini marshmallows, and arrange them to look like a mug of hot cocoa, then dust with cocoa powder.

Marshmallow topping:

• 100g marshmallows
• 1 tbsp butter

Melt marshmallows and butter together in the microwave on 70% power, 30 sec at a time, stirring between,
until it forms a smooth paste
Spread onto cupcakes

• Cut out a star from a piece of paper to use as a template. hold the template over the cupcake and dust cocoa powder over to form a star.