Assorted Chocolate Cupcakes

I spent an enjoyable day making chocolate cupcakes today, and I plan to gift them to my sister and brother-in-law as a belated 1st wedding anniversary present/house-warming gift.

I made several different types of icing (white chocolate buttercream, chocolate ganache and chocolate fondant. Of the three types of icing, the white chocolate buttercream was the easiest to work with. The ganache was initially a bit too firm to pipe effectively, then when in warmed up to room temperature it became a bit runny. Tricky to get right :-s The chocolate fondant icing came out ok although it set really quickly which meant that it wrinkled a bit when I moved the cupcake into the box which you can see in the bottom two photos.

Above: chocolate cupcakes iced with white chocolate buttercream and chocolate ganache

Above: more chocolate ganache iced cupcakes and wrinkly chocolate fondant! I made the chocolate roses by hand and am really pleased with the way that they turned out :-)