Cat in the Hat Cupcakes

Short Description: These chocolatey Cat in the Hat treats not only taste great, but look incredible too.

Ingredients:
Cupcake:

• 200 grams Plain flour
• 45 grams Cocoa powder
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• ¼ tsp Salt
• 100 grams Soft light brown sugar
• 180 grams Caster sugar
• 80 grams Unsalted butter
• 240 ml Whole milk
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract

Buttercream:

• 450 grams Icing sugar
• 150 grams Unsalted butter
• 35-40 ml Whole milk

To decorate:

• Blue gel food colour
• Red & white Ready to roll icing

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 190ºC. Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl beat together the butter and two sugars until creamy.
3. Meanwhile, in another bowl/jug whisk together the milk, eggs and vanilla extract.
4. Add ⅓ of the wet ingredients into the butter mixture and mix on a slow/medium speed followed by ½ of the dry ingredients.
5. Scrape down your bowl and beat in ½ the remaining wet ingredients followed by the rest of the dry ingredients. Once combined pour in the remaining wet ingredients.
6. Once the mixture is smooth, evenly divide it into the cupcake cases.
7. Bake in the oven for 18-22 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
8. For the buttercream sift the icing sugar into a bowl and beat it into the butter. Once sandy pour in the milk to combine.
9. Beat for a good 5 minutes until the icing is paler in colour and is light and fluffy. Add in blue colouring and beat until well combined.
10. Place the icing into a piping bag with a star tip and pipe swirls onto each cupcake.
11. To decorate, roll the white icing out to 3 mm thick and cut round circles out using a cookie cutter smaller than the cupcake. Leave to set.
12. For the hat. Roll out red & white icing to roughly 1 cm thick and cut out circles using the wide end of a piping nozzle 2 cm wide. 3 red circles and 2 white circles per hat.
13. Starting with the red icing, stack the circles on top of each other using water as glue in between the layers. Roll in your hands to secure the layers together.
14. Tilt the top of the hat to the side and leave to set.
15. Once set glue the hats on top of the larger white circles and place on top of the cupcakes.

Enjoy! :D