Abstract Mini Cupcakes

Today´s post isn´t so much a recipe as it is an idea for a cocktail party.

I made this little guys (mini cupcakes) for a mini gathering with my friends, and they loved them. 

For the mini cupcakes themselves I used a vanilla cake mix (my favorite is the one by Betty Crocker). Now, to have that half-light half-dark effect I divided my mixture into two bowls. One I left "natural" (w/out food coloring) and the other one I added a ton of food coloring. I used Black AmeriColor because I like this brand a lot. It good quality, and regularly doesn't add any weird flavor to my desserts. That is pretty important, especially if you use a ton. In this case case, the darkest it is, the more it will look like black, and not dark green.

Once I had my two bowls with two colors on them, I started pouring the mixture onto my mini cupcakes pans, with mini wrappers. I started with the half without food coloring, adding less than half on the mini wrapper, and then filled that in with the one with black food coloring. Less than the left half. ** In total they were filled about 2/3 of the wrapper. Working with Mini cupcakes, or anything mini, means a bit  more work because they are smaller, but lovely. 

Bake following the instructions of the package or the recipe. (**Note: I do prefer baking from scratch, but I happen to have one cake mix box, so I wanted to use it).

For the decoration I used: 1 package of Wilton´s White Candy Melts, melted, and 1 bar of Hershey´s Dark Chocolate, melted.

Once my minis were done, cooled and outside the pan I just grabbed them from the bottom and started dipping them onto the white candy melts. Peggy Porschen´s style (here).

She´s using liquid fondant, I´m using Candy Melts, but It was about the same technique. 

After that, and once my coats were dry, I took my delicious dark chocolate, and with a spoon started pouring randomly. This is the decoration part; here is where you are only limited by your imagination. For a more exact decoration, use a was paper cone, like in case you want to be really precise and draw something. Use a spoon if you want something careless, not so perfect, kind of, "wherever it falls looks cool anyways since its abstract" sort of deco. ** The more melted chocolate you have on your spoon, the thicker lines will get. 

And that´s it, “Abstract” or randomly decorated mini cupcakes. This mini fellas, in my opinion look cool and taste delish. Because of the contrasting flavor the dark chocolate gives. Hope you like the idea. Let me know!