ORANGE AND COCOA POPPY CUPCAKES

This year, for Mother’s Day, that in Spain is on the first Sunday of May, I’ve prepared these poppy cupcakes.

I hope you like them and give you an idea.

Ingredients (20 cupcakes):
Cupcakes:
3 eggs M
220 g flour (7.7 oz.)
195 g sugar (6.9 oz.)
120 g butter (4.2 oz.)
75 ml of orange juice
Orange zest
75 ml cream
50 g cocoa powder (1.8 oz.)
1,5 teaspoon of baking soda

Buttercream:
120 g of butter at room temperature (4.2 oz.)
250 g of icing sugar (8.8 oz.)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of milk
Red and black paste coloring.

Mix the flour, the cocoa, the baking soda and the salt, sift and reserve.

Preheat the oven at 175ºC (347ºF) and put the baking liners in the mold.

Mix the butter with the sugar until it is very creamy.
Add the eggs, one by one until the get integrated.
Add the cream and mix.
Then add half of the dry ingredients and mix.
Pour the orange juice and zest, mix and finally add the rest of dry ingredients.

Distribute the batter into the paper liners and bake them for 25-30 minutes, until a tooth stick comes out clean.

Meanwhile, prepare the buttercream.
Put in the bowl the butter and the icing sugar cover it and beat at high speed. When it gets homogeneous and add the vanilla.

Let the cupcakes cool down for 5 minutes in the mold and then put them on a rack.

Finally, when they are have cooled down, decorate with the buttercream.

To make the poppies, dye 1 tablespoon of buttercream black and the rest red and follow the instructions in the pictures.

For the petals I used 125 tip and for the center 2 tip, both of them from Wilton.