Twin Treat-Cute Reindeer Cupcakes and Devil's Food Cupcakes

Plans are nothing; planning is everything-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Plans !

At the beginning of this month, I made a plan with the list of recipes to be made and shared on the blog. I planned to make Truffles and Rum balls, Christmas fruit cakes and all sorts of Christmas Bakes!! Another thing on my plan was to participate in the event 'Cook like a star-Martha Stewart' which my dear friend Yen of Eat your heart out is co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy kids and Jocelyn of Riceball Eats for this month. One thing led to the other and the entire month breezed by and here I am barely 3 days left to Christmas, still with the plan!

Well, I made another plan!! To kill two birds with the same stone! I decided to make a Martha Stewart cupcake and do a christmassy icing. I eyed these cute little adorable reindeers on Pinterest and have been wanting to replicate them for the longest time. Every time I see them, my heart strums Vaanya's favorite Christmas carol

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer 

had a very shiny nose. 

And if you ever saw him, 

you would even say it glows. 

I eyed these chocolicious cupcakes here and wanted to try them badly so I planned(yet again) to make half as the recipe goes and the other half with the reindeers. 

Our Christmas tree is finally put up and all the decorations are out so I made the most of it!! Everyone loved the aptly named Devil's food cupcakes  and adored the cute reindeers. The cupcakes are soft dark chocolatey and very yummy.

Ingredients: I quartered the recipe to yield 7 cupcakes

• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp hot water
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp sugar (powdered)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sour cream(I used yogurt)
• 1-2 drops vanilla essence

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.
Line standard muffin tins with liners.
Whisk together cocoa and hot water until smooth.
In another bowl sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Melt butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring well to combine. Remove from heat and pour in a mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer till mixture is cooled, 4-5 mins.
Add egg and mix well.
Add vanilla essence and the cocoa mixture and beat till combined well.
Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with yogurt and beat until just combined.
Pour batter in prepared tins filling each till 3/4.
Bake for 20 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Cool them well before icing.

Assembly:
I used my leftover Chocolate honey frosting from Chocolate Almond cake. Spread them well on the cupcakes and sprinkle some chocolate shavings for Devil's Food cupcakes.
For the reindeer cupcakes, I spread the same frosting as base. Made eyes out of blobs of white butter and mouth with some white butter mixed with chocolate sauce to get the brownish tinge. Melt some dark chocolate and put in a ziplock bag or a plastic and snip of the end. Draw pairs of eyes and reindeer antlers on a butter/parchment paper. Draw extra pieces as they are brittle and may break. Let it cool completely and carefully peel off. Put the eyes on the white butter blobs and antlers on the head. For the noses I used Skittles (remember my Skittles experiment) You can use Gems or any other small round candy with brown/dark purple and red colour.

Sending this recipe to Yen for cook like a star, Merry Christmas celebrations, Cook Joy Bake fest#14, Favorite recipes Christmas, lets cook edible gifts for christmas, foodomania's christmas-cook-off-contest, 60 days to christmas, 16 Christmas treats and celebrate christmas

Merry Christmas
Amrita