Mr Potato Head Cupcakes

Made for my friend's little boy. I have just done the basics here - you can be creative with different hats, eyes, mouths, noses, glasses etc., and perhaps even lips for Mrs P H!

1. 1

   Melt the white chocolate, then add a tiny bit of red food colouring, then stir it well to turn it pink. Melt the dark chocolate separately.
   If you want to use a template, draw ear and moustache shapes on a plain piece of paper and put it under a sheet of baking paper. Use the cupcake as a guide for the size that you need. Using the template, or freehand, spoon or pipe (small nozzle, or freezer bag with the corner snipped off) the chocolate onto the baking paper to make ears and moustaches. You can also pipe little eyebrows (although my hats were quite large so there wasn't really room for them!). Also use a little of the dark chocolate to mark the pupils on the white chocolate buttons / mini eggs for eyes. Leave all the chocolate to set.
   Take a little of the white icing and roll it out, then cut out little shapes for the mouths, and add a line of black writing icing or dark chocolate. Or mark teeth shapes using a knife - whatever you prefer.
   Colour the rest of the fondant icing black, knead in well, then roll out to about 3mm. This is quite a messy job - I used gloves and rolled the icing out between two sheets of cling film, to avoid getting black food colouring everywhere. If you can get hold of pre-made black icing, it might be a good idea! Make a little hat template out of paper and use to cut out 8 icing hats.
   All of the above can be made a day or two in advance if needed.
   Make the buttercream by beating together 40 g butter and 100 g icing sugar. Add a teaspoon of hot water, beat again, then add another 75 g icing sugar, another tsp of hot water and the Nutella (or melted chocolate), and beat well. Taste and check for consistency and add more butter / icing sugar / water if needed.
   Ice the cupcakes with the buttercream, then use the parts prepared above to make the faces.
   Alternatively, serve the iced cupcakes as they are, with a little dish of 'detachable parts' so that people can make their own faces, just as with the toy.
   
   Smile and enjoy!