Chinese New Year theme Cupcakes

My next opportunity to make cupcakes came during Chinese New Year, sometime in January/February. Hubby invited some western friends over for Chinese steamboat dinner and I thought perhaps they will appreciate a western dessert in case they didn't really like the main course. It turned out they really loved our way of eating 'steamboat', which is essentially a hot pot meal. Everybody sits around the steaming hot pot and cooks their own meat, vegetables and dumplings inside the soup. The hot pot of stock gets richer with the flavours of all the meat and vegetables as the dinner progresses and at the end, you drink the wonderful soup. It's really a meal suitable for winter, which is what the season is traditionally during Chinese New Year in the northern hemisphere, but our guests and us enjoyed it nonetheless. 

By the time the cupcakes came out, our guests were all too full to eat much but they brought some cupcakes home. They were white chocolate cupcakes and I especially made effort to include various symbolic items related to Chinese New Year. There were the traditional chinese girl and boy; cherry blossom tree and flowers, asymbol of Spring; firecrackers; red packets and the words "Gong Xi Fa Cai", a greeting we exchange when we meet others. Basically it means to "congratulations on prosperity". The Chinese it appears are pretty obsessed with getting rich...lol. 

The white chocolate cupcakes were one of the best tasting ones ever and again, I had loads of fun making the decorations with fondant.