Monday 14 July 2014

Minnie Mouse Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting

Hello everyone, it's been a while! I'm sorry for the radio silence recently, I hope you didn't miss me too much but I can promise that Bake it Blonde is back and better than ever! So for my first post back I thought I'd show you some adorable Minnie Mouse Cupcakes that I made for my friend Nettie's birthday recently.


Nettie is an extremely talented artist and great friend, you can check out her work here: nettiewakefield.net. Her portfolio is fantastic and one of the reverse portraits may even be of yours truly! - can you guess which one?



This was my first time experimenting with fondant icing and I'm really happy with how Minnie's bows turned out. It was a little daunting working with materials that are new to me but I loved the challenge and I'm definitely looking forward to experimenting with fondant in the future.





(FYI my camera is broken at the minute so I do apologise for the less than perfect photography but its all about the baking, right?)

These cupcakes were surprisingly easy to make, however do take a little bit of patience in the assembly. The most fiddly part was the fondant bows but with a little practice - ok, a lot of practice bows - they turned out exactly how I wanted.

Ingredients: (makes 12)

Chocolate Cupcakes:
150g Unsalted Butter
150g Caster Sugar
3 medium eggs
100g Self Raising Flour
50g Cocoa powder

White Chocolate Frosting:
110g unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
150g white chocolate
1 tablespoon semi-skimmed milk(possibly)

Minnie Mouse Decorations:
Red Fondant (approx 25g for 12 bows)
20g White Chocolate
24 Giant Chocolate Buttons

Method:

1.Preheat oven to 160degrees celcius.
2. To make the chocolate sponge, cream together the butter and sugar until the butter lightens in colour. Add in the flour, cocoa and eggs little by little and mix until smooth.
3. Spoon mixture evenly into cupcake cases, making sure they are only around two-thirds full and have space to rise.I used red and white polkadot cases to carry on the Minnie Mouse theme.
4. Bake cupcakes for 15-20minutes until risen and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Set aside on a wire tray to cool.
5. Roll out fondant, if it sticks sprinkle the work surface with a little icing sugar.
6. Cut a 5cm x 1cm strip , pinch both ends to form a crease and bring in to the middle to create the two loops of the bow. Seal with a little water.
7. Cut a separate thinner strip 1cm x 0.5cm and wrap around the middle to conceal the seams.
8. For a full fondant bow tutorial see here.
9. Melt 20g of the white chocolate and use the tip of a fork to create polkadots on the fondant bows.
10. for the white chocolate frosting, mix together the butter and half the icing sugar until they form a smooth paste. Continue adding the rest of the icing sugar until smooth.
11. Melt 150g white chocolate and add to the buttercream mixture.
12. At this point, depending on the consistency of the buttercream, you may need to add the mil to thin it out. Remember it needs to be thick enough to pipe and retain tis shape.
13. Transfer the buttercream to a piping bag with a star tip and pipe swirls onto the cooled cupcakes.
14. Add two chocolate buttons for ears and a fondant bow in the middle to create the minnie mouse look.



I would love to see your baking creations - if you decide to make these Minnie Mouse cupcakes or any of the other recipes on my blog, don't forget to let me know! Tag @bakeitblonde on Twitter or Instagram so I can see all of your delicious attempts!

xx

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