Weddingbee PRO

It was my turn to bring dessert to my Bible study last Thursday night, which was around the same time I was making the cake for another order, so I decided to use a little of the batter to make mini cupcakes for everyone. To make the cupcakes even cuter I decided to use some adorable flower cupcakes liners that I got from Fancy Flours. I think I have an unhealthy addiction to cute cupcake liners and once I see them…I have to have them!

I been really into using one of Barefoot Contessa's chocolate cake recipes and have found that it is my favorite chocolate cake recipe I've tasted yet, and believe me, I have eaten a lot of chocolate cake! I use a pastry bag and fill it will the batter and then pipe it into the mini cupcake liners to make everything a lot easier. To spice the recipe up even more I added a peanut butter filling from Chockylit's Cupcake Blog (As she recommends, definitely add more milk to this recipe…just enough to make it creamy). To put the filling in the cupcakes I use a pastry bag with a medium tip and insert the tip into the cupcake and squeeze until the cupcake expands slightly and the filling comes to the top.

To top off these yummy cupcakes I used a Chocolate Mousse Buttercream recipe from the book Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, by Jill O'Conner. This recipe is delicious!

Chocolate Mousse Buttercream

adapted from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey

yield: about 5 cups

6 large eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 T. Dutch processed cocoa powder

1 t. vanilla extract

pinch of salt

6 sticks (24 oz) of cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

12 oz semisweet chocolate, melted

Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and cocoa powder in the metal bowl of a stand mixer.

Fill a large saute pan with hot water and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Place the mixing bowl in the water and whisk the egg mixture constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is thick and fluffy and very hot, 3-4 minutes. The temperature should be between 120-140 degrees.

Remove the bowl from the water and using the whisk attachment, beat the eggs at a medium-high speed until they are tripled in volume and form very soft peaks. The bottom of the bowl should be completely cool to the touch, about 10 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and salt.

Switch to the paddle attachment on your mixer and turn to medium-high speed. Add the chucks of butter a couple at a time. Once all is added, turn the mixer on high speed and let it mix until the buttercream comes together and is shiny and smooth…don't worry if it separates at first, it will come together!

Add the buttercream to another bowl (not metal…it is too cold and will seize the chocolate) and then add 1/2 of the warm chocolate and stir to incorporate. Add the remaining chocolate and stir to fully incorporate. Place the chocolate buttercream in a pastry bag fitted with a #807 tip and pipe your buttercream onto the cupcake. To get the swirl effect, simply start at one end of the cupcake and pipe in a circle. Continue piping until you have two layers of frosting. Stop squeezing the frosting and quickly pull tip away from cupcake.

To make the fondant accent simply roll out your fondant to 1/8″-1/4″ thick and stamp your impressions onto it. If it sticks add a little cornstarch. Next use a brush to add luster dust to the fondant. Then use a small circle cutter and cut circles out of the fondant. Let the circles dry slightly before adding them to the cupcake or else they won't hold their shape.

And here is the final cupcake creation!