Chocolate Cupcake Suprises - Emily with Sprinkles

A recipe for 12 light and fluffy chocolate cupcakes with creamy chocolate buttercream, white chocolate decoration and a hidden suprise!

I have always wanted to try out some chocolate work so with my latest cupcakes I thought I would attempt some white chocolate decoration. Well, it was certainly not as straight forward as it looks! First of all the chocolate went everywhere, so I had to master the art of either moving fast of squeezing the piping tube gently (preferably both). Then after a while, the chocolate obviously started to set. The latter wasn’t as much of a problem because, honestly, it was easier to work with then. After all of this, it’s made me even more determined to master the art and I would certainly encourage others to try. It’s so much fun, and if the pattern doesn’t quite work out, it really doesn’t matter as you can just make it into sprinkles or (in my case) eat it!

Here are the top tips I learned the hard way:

Wait for the chocolate to cool for a couple of minutes. trying to work with really hot chocolate is hard as it just runs everywhere.
Have a few practice go’s. Honestly, don’t expect to create the perfect line or pattern straight away.
Draw you pattern on a piece of paper and place this under the grease proof paper. I didn’t do this at all and it only occurred to me after I’d used all the chocolate that this would have been so much easier.

If you fancy giving this a go, here’s a recipe to inspire you. Just as a side note, I halved the recipe on this occasion as I only wanted to make 6 cakes so the pictures are taken of half quantities but the recipe will do 12.

Ingredients – Cakes

200g softened butter
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
160g self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder

Ingredients – Buttercream and Decoration

160g butter
360g icing sugar
40g cocoa powder
3 tbsp milk
White chocolate for decoration (I used a Choco Writer)
Colourful Choco beans for the hidden suprise

Step 1

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees (fan).

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Step 2

Whisk the eggs into the mixture.

Remember I halved this recipe but you would be adding 4 to make the full 12 cakes.

Step 3

Add the baking powder, flour and cocoa powder and fold into the mixture.

Step 4

Split the mixture between 12 cupcake cases. Filling each to 2/3 full.

Bake for between 15 and 20 minutes.

Step 5

Check the cakes are cooked through with a cake tester then allow to cool fully.

Step 6

When the cakes are fully cooled, cut out a small shallow hole in the top of each cake.

Step 7

Fill each hole with a small number of cocoa beans and put to one side.

Step 8

To make the buttercream, whisk the butter for at least 5 minutes.

Step 9

Add the cocoa powder and the icing sugar in 4 stages (approx. 100g each time) and whisk after each addition.

Add up to 3 tbsp milk and check the consistency after each tablespoon (you may only need 1 or 2).

Step 10

Heat the Choco Writer in a jug of boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Take the tube out and allow to cool slightly for 2 minutes.

Cut the end off the writer (tip: start close to the end as you don’t want the opening to be too large) then begin to practice. It took me a few minutes to get used to the flow so I’d recommend practicing on one piece of grease proof paper first then doing your final designs on another.