Holiday Tree Cupcakes

A day before: Knead a few drops of green food colouring into the fondant icing. Roll out on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar and stamp out tree shapes with some cookie cutters. Place the tube of the glue for 5-10 minutes in warm water to make it smooth. Apply a strip of glue to each tree. Break the chocolate sticks into smaller pieces to ensure they fit onto the trees. Leave to dry overnight on parchment paper.

Prepare the icing: mix the whipping cream and Dr. Oetker Shirriff Chocolate Pudding & Pie Filling mix in a pan.

Stir continuously over medium high heat (approx.15 min.) to prevent burn. When mixture comes to boil and begins to thicken, stir for 1 min. more. Remove from heat and stir well two separate times over a 5 min. period. Let it cool  within room temperature.

Prepare the dough: Put the cupcake liners in the muffin tin. Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Mix the flour and Dr. Oetker Shirriff Chocolate Pudding & Pie Filling mix in a mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix everything with a mixer briefly on the lowest speed, then on the highest speed for 2 minutes until a smooth dough forms. Divide the batter equally between the muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the muffins from the tin and leave to cool on a cooling rack.  Baking time: about 20 Minutes

For the icing: take the mix from step 2 and whip with the butter with a mixer until a smooth consistency and spread the topping over each muffin. Cool them until served.

Decorate the muffins with the trees just before serving.