Hi Hats for Jamie and Conor's Birthdays!

When I saw Hi Hat Cupcakes on Bakerella's blog, I thought of Jamie. She loves chocolate-dipped soft-serve ice cream cones, which these cupcakes resemble. And, even though Jamie is in Japan for her birthday this year, I still felt the need to make these cupcakes, because I'm crazy like that. The only problem is that I have a lot of cupcakes now to get rid of... but, I think that will be easy enough to remedy.

Anyway, on to the Hi Hats! When I first read this recipe, I wondered about the physics of dipping the tall piped-on marshmallow "frosting" into the melted chocolate coating—really, how could that work?? And, it turns out that (for me at least) it was a comedy of errors...

Dip...

Really? Is this working??!

Wow...

Umm... no. Dang it!

Then, I put the pre-dipped cupcakes in the freezer for about five minutes while I let the melted chocolate coating cool completely (it was a little warm, but not hot before). And, then, it worked like a charm!

See? Beauty!

Oh, and since the chocolate cake here is gluten-free, and one of the recipients of these is a gluten-free and egg-free gal (unless the egg is baked into something), I made a handful of cupcakes with a chocolate ganache topping too (and some Halloween-y sprinkles for fun)!
Recipes are from Gluten-Free Girl, right here, and Bakerella (and Martha Stewart, really) right here and here.

And, best of all, they made for some happy kiddos this afternoon at Conor's 2nd birthday party!!