Today we are going to show you how to dress up your cupcakes even more than you already do! Adding a bit of formality to this classic dessert is what this New Year needs don’t you think? Our chocolate hi hat cupcakes recipe is about as elegant as you are going to get from a cupcake. Just look at these beauties!
So, maybe they should be high hat cupcakes because the frosting is the top hat of the cupcake? Maybe? Ok, moving on…. The tutorial is below!
They’re just normal cupcakes with the frosting piled super high and then dipped in chocolate to form a shell. When you serve them, they’ll be gone in no time flat.
You probably know the basics of making and frosting cupcakes, but if you’re wondering how to dip the frosting in chocolate, we cover that in-depth below!
We just had to do these fancy cupcakes for our upcoming New Year’s Eve party dessert table. New Year hi hat cupcakes fanciest of fancy, no?
Essentially, after your frosted cupcakes set for a few minutes in the fridge, you hold the cupcakes by the bottom and dip them into the chocolate coating.
Then you place them on a wire rack to harden after letting the excess drip off. You’ll see what we mean in the instructions below!
They key to this entire post is the super high frosting pile. You definitely need a firmer crusting frosting recipe to keep its shape to dip the chocolate in. Regular buttercream frosting is far too soft to create the peak at the top that you really want to pull this look off.
Hi Hat Cupcakes Recipe Ingredients & Utensils
Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups white granulated sugar
- 3 large egg whites, room temperature
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Chocolate Coating:
- 2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
Utensils & Other Items
Frosting:
- Large bowl
- Mixer
- Pan of water
- Decorator bag with a large round tip
- Baking sheet
Chocolate Coating:
- Medium saucepan
- A heatproof bowl
- A deeper bowl (than the heatproof one)
- Wire rack
- Baking sheet
How To Make Hi Hat Cupcakes
Cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- We used our from scratch recipe here.
- Grab a cupcake pan and line it with cupcake liners.
- Bake chocolate cupcakes according to recipe. In a pinch? Boxed cake mix! It’s the top that we are focusing on in this recipe post anyway.
Frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, ¼ cup water, egg whites, and cream of tartar.
- With an electric mixer, beat on high speed until foamy (about 1 minute).
- Set bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.
- Beat on high speed until frosting forms stiff peaks (about 12 minutes).
- Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
- Continue beating for 2 minutes more until frosting thickens.
- Transfer frosting to disposable piping bag fitted with a large round tip.
- Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes, leaving about ⅛ inch border around the edge of cupcake.
- Place frosted cupcakes onto a baking sheet and put in refrigerator while preparing the chocolate coating.
Making and dipping the chocolate coating:
- Add water to a medium saucepan and heat to barely simmering.
- In a heatproof bowl, combine chocolate and oil.
- Set bowl on the saucepan and stir until melted and smooth.
- Transfer chocolate to a deep bowl for dipping and cool about 15 minutes.
- Add wire rack to a baking sheet.
- Hold each cupcake from the bottom and dip into chocolate to coat the frosting. Allow excess to drop off.
- Place on wire rack.
- Spoon additional chocolate around the edge of the cupcake and any exposed frosting.
- Dip in plate of sprinkles or lightly apply above the slightly wet chocolate coating to desired coverage. Tips below in FAQs!
- Let cupcakes stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.
- Place in refrigerator for the coating to set (about 30 minutes).
Hi Hat Cupcakes Tutorial: Questions & Answers
What other flavors cupcakes would work for this recipe?
The main focus of this post is the firm frosting and homemade magic shell chocolate coating so have fun and mix up cupcake flavors!
Mix and match cupcake flavors, chocolate coating colors, cupcake liners, sprinkles, and have fun making this one of a kind! We did New Year’s Day cupcakes this time!
You could even play around with coloring your frosting so you have a nice pop of color when you see the inside.
Can you make any part of this hi hat cupcakes recipe in advance?
Yes! The cupcakes and the frosting will stay overnight in the fridge. If you have leftovers from previous baking, have at it! Many of our customers freeze cupcakes ahead too to save time.
What kind of semisweet chocolate should I use?
Definitely chop up a bar of pure semisweet chocolate chips from any brand. We don’t find milk chocolate chips give the dip a consistency we really wanted.
How can i get sprinkles on after dipping?
A question after our own heart! You definitely want to get sprinkles on these hi hat cupcakes while the chocolate coating is still slightly wet.
After dipping in the chocolate and letting them sit until they are all dipped, begin adding sprinkles to them by adding sprinkles from above like we did in this post.
This gives the cupcakes enough time to start setting so the sprinkles settle on the coating and not in it.
If you want all.the.sprinkles, quickly roll your chocolate dipped cupcakes on a plate of sprinkles if you want to completely cover them.
We wanted to have a good amount of sprinkles but still show the set chocolate and the shape of the top. You do you! Measure it with your heart! 😉
Just look at those stiff peaks y’all. What a fun cupcake idea!
You’ll love these chocolate dipped cupcakes!
It’s a bit of a long recipe, but one that’s totally worth it, don’t you think? Chocolate dipped cupcakes are a fantastic way to fancy up a party or get-together without actually spending hours and hours in the kitchen.
We’d love to hear how your dipped cupcakes turned out, so write us a comment down below with your thoughts or questions!
Love This Hi Hat Cupcakes Recipe? Check out more cupcake inspiration right here!
- Hot Chocolate Recipe
- Chocolate Peppermint Recipe
- Apple Pie Cupcakes (with Salted Caramel Buttercream!)
- Cookies and Cream Recipe
- Funfetti Recipe
- Vanilla Recipe
- Pink Lemonade Recipe
- Square Cupcake Tutorial
- Cake Pizza Tutorial
- Ombre Cupcake Tutorial
- New Years Eve Treats
10 comments
Can coconut oil be used instead of canola or vegetable for the chocolate coating? I know it would alter the flavor (yum!), but would the texture be thrown off?
Absolutely! While we haven’t done it ourselves yet, we’ve gotten feedback that coconut oil works great too from customers tweaking our recipe. Great question!
Hello. Does it fit any piping tip like a ruffle piping tip and its for how many cupcakes please?
Also can I use any chocolate if I do not have choco chips?
Thanks in advance
We used our Jumbo Plain piping tip from our shop for these. Because the frosting is thicker than normal buttercream, it may not work well with tips that have smaller holes. The jumbo tips work perfectly. We were able to do 24 cupcakes from this recipe!
Do the egg whites need to be room temperature
As a habit, we do that with most ingredients but it’s not required for the recipe.
Good day ,I would like to know how I can make my hi hat cupcakes ,frosting to be pink in colour.Do I omit the vanilla extract and add strawberry extract and will this give it a pink colour .Alternatively could I make the frosting as is and add a pink gel colour . PLEASE HELP
Hi Kasheefah, there are a couple options for coloring the frosting pink –
1. color the frosting (white) with a little bit of gel food coloring
2. melt pink candy melts to dip in frosting in, instead of the chocolate chips
Hope that helps. Let us know if you have more questions.
-Liz
Can I replace the cream of tartar by lemon juice ?
We haven’t subbed that in our recipe but if you decide to test it out, let us know how it goes!