Harry Potter Cupcakes

Cupcakes

 Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (180C) or 320 FC (160C) for a fan forced oven. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, soda, and salt. Turn mixer on low speed and allow it to mix for a couple minutes to help everything combine well (or sift the ingredients together). Add in the softened butter until no lumps of butter are visible and it’s well incorporated into the dry ingredients.

Next, add milk, eggs, and vanilla together and whisk until well combined. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients in a slow and steady stream until no dry ingredients are visible. Scrape down the bowl and mix for another 20 seconds.

Fill each paper 3/4 of the way (using an ice cream scoop to transfer the batter into the cupcake liners makes this a quick and easy process otherwise you can use two tablespoons). I don’t recommend over-filling your tins or they may overflow. I’ve used the extra to make some mini-cupcakes before!

Bake for 20-25 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow them to cool completely on a wire cooling rack before frosting. If you insert a skewer and it comes out with wet batter, bake for another few minutes at a time until a skewer or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Cool completely. 

(I filled the cupcakes in the photos with chocolate ganache - if you'd like to as well, melt together 2 cups/12oz chocolate chips with 1 1/2 cups/12oz of heavy cream & cool until thick enough to pipe. Transfer to a piping bag, core your cupcakes with a knife or cupcake corer, and fill with ganache! Skip this step for a time-saver and slightly less messy cupcake. :) )

Frosting / Decorations

Beat together softened cream cheese and butter; slowly add in powdered sugar alternating with 2-4 tablespoons of milk until frosting reaches desired consistency. Add vanilla and salt and beat until well combined.

I divided the frosting in half at this point, and added cocoa powder and activated charcoal to make a black chocolate frosting – and then added milk and gel food coloring until the color and consistency reached what I wanted. 😉 If you add charcoal and a bit of gel color and it's not as dark as you'd like, letting the frosting sit for several hours or overnight will deepen the black color.

Pipe frosting in large swirls onto your cupcakes (or spread it if you'd rather. ;) Decorate the top of each cupcake with a Harry Potter-themed cupcake topper. Done and done! Enjoy! :)