Cupcakes of the Sophisticated Kind

These super sophisticated cupcakes were created for a birthday. I made some plain vanilla cupcakes, and some chocolate ones (just added cocoa until they were suitably chocolaty).  The recipe can be found here - just ignore the orange.  Again, I made big cupcakes and small; but most big.

The whizzed-up batter; it tastes delicious.  Believe me.

The cupcakes rose quite a bit in the oven, and unevenly too, to my aggravation.

So, I had to take action.  With a knife.

What a shame, all those scraps...

To top the cupcakes, I whipped up some buttercream then tinted it caramel-brown, and left some ganache I'd prepared earlier out to return to room temperature.

I piped on the buttercream studded it with silver cachous.  These cupcakes made me laugh.

As for the ganache...while I was piping, Mum took up a spatula and ganachified the other cupcakes.  I really like how she did them.  I dipped some of the mini cupcakes in 100s and 1000s...

 ...and Mum insisted on popping some sugar flowers on the big cupcakes.

Which, I must admit, look gorgeous.

It was late, and a school night, so of course I had to snap a couple more photos.

Enjoy!