Mindy Belle

Animal Print Cupcakes

Zebra ! Giraffe ! Cheetah !

Tiger !

Using the Chocolate Mud Cake recipe in a half batch I made these cupcakes as a experiment to see if the mixture would work as a cupcake.

Ingredients
325 g unsalted butter
325g 70% cocoa chocolate
50ml espresso coffee
1.5 tsp vanilla essence
325 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
475g brown sugar
5 eggs
284ml sour cream

Method
Heat oven to 160C
Melt butter & chocolate in a medium saucepan until melted add coffee and vanilla
Sift flour and baking powder and bicarb in a bowl add the brown sugar and breakdown any lumps.
Beat the eggs and sour cream in a jug add to the flour mix and then pour in chocolate mixture.
Mix until all combined, check the bottom of the bowl.
Pour 1/3 of cup of mixture into cupcake patties in a muffin pan.
Bake for 30 mins until the middle is cooked.

Cool on a rack until completely cold.
Cover with butter cream icing in a thin later.

Base Fondant:
To make the animal prints colour fondant icing with Yellow for the Giraffe or leave white for the Zebra.
For the Cheetah or leopard print mix yellow and white for a soft ivory base.

Roll fondant to about 2mm thick and cut 7.5 cm round disks with a cutter in the right size. These need to be a neat cut.
Cover the top of the Butter cream iced cupcake with the round disk and carefully press around the edges to create a curved edge.

Leave to dry for at least a hour.

Painting the colours:
To Make the Giraffe print mix Yellow food dye in a small glass with a few drops of red and one drop of blue to create a soft brown.
Mark the print with a toothpick and paint in the pattern.

For the Zebra mix all food dye colours to create a black brown brush lines to create the print.

For the Tiger lightly brush with orange and brown and with a fine brush paint on black lines in print.

Enjoy !!!