Friday 3 August 2012

Chocolate Hedgehog Cupcakes


As soon as I saw these super cute chocolate hedgehog cupcakes on one of my favourite blogs Not Quite Nigella I knew I had to make them. They were bumped up to the top of my to bake list and I'm glad I did as they are really fun to make and tastes deliciously chocolatey. It's a chocolate mud cupcake with a chocolate sour cream frosting decorated with even more chocolate in the form of Twirl bars - a true choc-a-holic's heaven :)

As I used Twirl bars which contain the letter "T", I am entering them to AlphaBakes which is hosted by myself this month and co-hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes. There will be a very special prize for AlphaBakes this month so check back later to see what it is and get baking in the kitchen for a chance to win - trust me you won't want to miss it :)



I'm also entering this to bookmarked recipes hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes who was recently voted top vegetarian food blogs by Red magazine online - congratulations!



As these are cupcakes, I'm entering them to Cupcake Tuesday hosted by Liz from Hoosier Homemade, the Cupcake Lady!



 The batter will be quite liquid but don't worry

 Lots of cracks but no one will know once you've decorated them :)

 making the sour cream chocolate frosting - yum! 

 I used twirl bars as they are one of my favourites - you can also use flake bars which might look more realistic. I used a tube of white chocolate writing icing for the eyes and edible black 'eyes' that I bought at Cake International earlier this year. 

 Smooth the icing on top of the cupcake - don't worry about neatness. Form the eyes and nose as shown 

 add chopped twirl bars vertically to create a hedgehog effect 

 so cute! 


 2D version  as I ran out of twirl bars and only had the crumbs left! 

Addendum 4/8/12 - My friend Kate loved these so much she decided to make a giant hedgehog cake for her sister-in-law's birthday! Awesome job! 

 Victoria sponge cake with chocolate buttercream decorated with flakes and M&M's 

Recipe from Not Quite Nigella

Makes 15 cupcakes 
For chocolate mud cupcakes

165g butter
120g dark chocolate broken up into pieces
225g light brown sugar
1 cup water
1 cup plain flour
30g cornflour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 egg

Chocolate sour cream frosting

40g unsalted butter
85g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
150g icing sugar
1/2 tablespoon golden syrup
65 ml sour cream
To decorate:

8 twin twirl bars, chopped into 2cm/1 inch pieces and crumbled up
Edible eyes 
White chocolate writing icing

1. Preheat oven to 150c fan forced or 170c non fan forced.

2. Place butter, chocolate, sugar, the water in small saucepan over low heat until melted and combined. Cool for 15 minutes.

3. Using a whisk, add flour, cocoa and then egg (at this stage it will look like liquidey dark chocolate ganache). Spoon into cupcake cases. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in tin.

4. To make the frosting, melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler or in a microwave. In a food processor, whizz the icing sugar to get rid of any lumps and then add the sour cream, melted chocolate and butter and golden syrup.

5. Spread over the cupcake generously (you will need it a thickish coating to allow the chocolate to sit up. Refrigerate to make the icing a bit firmer.
6. Decorate as shown above.
 

27 comments:

  1. Aww they're really cute - and very chocolatey!

    ReplyDelete
  2. These look really cute - and Twirl bars are one of my favourites too! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I always pick out the twirls if there's a box of heroes going round.

      Delete
  3. So cute!
    Chocolate and cute, whats not to love!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chocolate and cute - wish it was "C" for alphabakes :)

      Delete
  4. Oh my goodness...these look like they'd taste amazingly good! Twirls were my number one chocolate before I gave up...the hedgehogs are so cute too! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm impressed you gave up chocolate. I love my twirl bars :)

      Delete
  5. Oh my gosh!!! They are too cute. Great little cuppies, not sure I could bring myself to eat one though ;0)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Yes it was quite hard to eat one but I managed ;)

      Delete
  6. Wow! Such Cute cupcakes! Very chocolatey too! J'adore! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ahhh these are amazing! So cute! My friend once made me hedgehog cupcakes but used cut-in-half chocolate buttons.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ros, I absolutely love your cupcakes!! You did an absolutely wonderful job and thank you so much for the kind words! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Lorraine! They don't look as good as yours but they tasted great and I had lots of fun making them :)

      Delete
  9. What cute and creative cupcakes!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Aw, I'd love these. Chocolate, check. Twirls, check. Cake, check :D. I miss England and its chocolate bars sometimes... they don't really do chocolate in the same way here. Some may argue "French chocolate is better", blah blah blah. Sometimes, all I want is a Double Decker, Twirl or Crunchie!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love twirls and crunchie. French chocolate is good for certain occasions but sometimes only Cadbury will hit the spot! :)

      Delete
  11. As a paid up, card carrying member of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, I think these are just fab!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Aww these are adorable, I saw the picture you tweeted! Choc sour cream frosting sounds interesting, does it taste any different?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! The frosting taste less sweet compared to a chocolate buttercream frosting which is what you want for these as there's chocolate overload. It's similar to chocolate philadelphia cream cheese if you've tried that.

      Delete
  13. Very cute and very very chocolately!!! My kind of cupcake:-)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Oh my. These are amazing!! Love the effect. And they look rather yummy too!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh my. These are amazing!! Love the effect. And they look rather yummy too!!!

    ReplyDelete

I've had to turn word verification back on as I've had a lot of problem with spam lately, Apologies! Please, please do leave a comment - I appreciate every one of them and will reply to all of them. Thanks!