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.