Chocolate Mini Cupcakes for RSPCA Cupcake Day

On Monday 20 August, we hosted an RSPCA Cupcake Day in my team at work.  I enjoy RSPCA Cupcake Day, because while raising money for a good cause, you get to see the marvellous delights made by the hidden bakers in your team, and sample some terrific home made baked goods.

This year, I made Chocolate Mini Cupcakes from the Nestle website - after all, it's not Cupcake Day without some cupcakes.

Here are the cupcakes, unadorned:

I then gussied them up with some fancy piped frosting, sanding sugar and sugar stars and flowers:

The recipe made 36 mini cupcakes - here they are in all their glory:

The recipe is as follows:

100g dark chocolate melts or chopped dark chocolate
125ml water
65g butter
110g brown sugar
2 eggs
110g self raising flour
35g plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
65g choc bits (optional)

Icing:

185g butter
280 icing sugar
1 heaped tablespoon cocoa 

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Line 2 x 12-hole  mini muffin trays with paper cases (in my case, 3 trays!).

Now here comes the counter-intuitive step (because we are told that water spoils chocolate).  Place the chocolate melts or chopped dark chocolate and water in a small saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes or until melted and smooth. Trust me, it works - it takes a while, just be patient. Remove from the heat.

In a stand mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar  together until pale and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the flours and cocoa, and beat on low speed until just combined. Add the melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine, then fold in the choc bits.

Spoon the batter into the muffin pans and bake for 15 minutes or until cooked through. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

For the icing, beat all of the ingredients together in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.  using a piping bag, pipe the icing onto the cooled cupcakes and decorate as desired.

Here is our laden RSPCA Cupcake Day morning tea table:

It was all devine! We raised over $400 for the RSPCA, which is a pretty good effort.