Oreo Chocolate Cupcakes

I may or may not take things a bit too far when it comes to chocolate, but sometimes you just need to have 3 different kinds of chocolate! In this case, the chocolate cupcakes have a chocolate ganache core and an Oreo topping. Just because I feel like moderation and chocolate don't go too well together. Yields approximately 16 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 pack Oreo cookies (154g)
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate
• 1 1/2 cups whipped cream
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar
• pinch of salt 

Preheat the oven to 175 °C (fan oven). Mix the flour, sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking powder and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Dissolve the instant coffee in 1 cup of boiling water and add it to the dry ingredients. Add the eggs, vegetable oil and buttermilk. Distribute the dough among your muffin forms. Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes (use a toothpick to make sure that the muffins are done).

Next, melt the chocolate in the microwave or with a saucepan. Mix 2-3 tablespoons of whipped cream with the chocolate. However, you might want to keep a bit of the chocolate to use it as decoration later. Remove part of the muffin core and fill it with your chocolate mixture while it's still soft. 

Smash the Oreos with a rolling pin and mix them with the remaining whipped cream and vanilla sugar. Use the mixture as a topping.

Harry Potter Golden Snitch Cupcakes

Happy New Year, everyone! For our Harry Potter movie marathon last night, I decided to bake some Snitch cupcakes inspired by these Golden Snitches. If you're not a Harry Potter fan, the cupcake on its own with the chocolate dough and maple syrup topping is quite tasty and definitely worth a try! The recipe yields approximately 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Dough: 

• 125g butter
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 1 pack vanilla sugar
• 2 tbsps cocoa powder
• 2 tsps baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• (Nutella)

Topping:

• 1 cup whipped cream
• 1 pack vanilla sugar
• 1 tsp maple syrup
• 12 ferrero rochers 

Preheat the oven to 175 °C (fan oven) or 200 °C (upper and lower heat). For the dough, slowly melt a mixture of butter, sugar and vanilla sugar in a saucepan or inside the microwave. Mix all the remaining dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt) in a separate bowl. Add the butter-sugar mix as well as the eggs and buttermilk to the dry ingredients and mix until the texture is even. Fill the muffin cups with your dough.

This step is optional, however I was in the mood for some Nutella, so I added a bit to each muffin cup.

Bake the muffins for approximately 20 minutes. Let them cool before you add the topping. For the topping, beat some whipping cream until it is stiff (not for too long, as it might turn buttery with little lumps if you beat it for too long) and add the maple syrup and vanilla sugar. I used a closed star piping nozzle for the topping.

For the snitches, remove the brown wrapping from the ferrero rochers and peel off the little sticker. Cut out wings from white cardboard (I used the first pair of wings as a template for all the other ones).

Use the sticker you peeled off earlier to attach the wings. If this doesn't work, use a bit of glue. Stick a toothpick through the bottom of the ferrero rocher and through the tip of your topping. 

If everything worked out well, your Snitches should now look like they are lifting off  of your cupcakes.