First – melt your unsalted butter and set aside to cool. This ensures it won’t be too warm and cook your eggs when you add it!

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F, and prepare 24 muffin tins with cupcake liners.

In a large bowl combine the all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a medium bowl, whisk sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, milk and sour cream until well combined.  Add the cooled melted butter and whisk again until well combined.

Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Don’t overmix! The batter will be a bit lumpy and quite thick.

Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners, filling them about 2/3 full. (I like to use a large cookie scoop for this part – makes the process a little cleaner and my cupcake sizes a lot more consistent!) Bake for 14-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean. Cool completely before decorating.

Meanwhile, make your fillings, frosting, and decorations!

Beat together softened cream cheese and butter; slowly add in powdered sugar alternating with milk until frosting reaches a pipeable consistency. Add vanilla and salt if needed and beat until well combined.

Remove about ½ cup of frosting into each of 4 small bowls, and stir in red, yellow, blue, and green gel food coloring until desired color is reached. Gel food coloring is pretty strong, so it only took about 1-2 large drops to get the bright colors I wanted.

Add cocoa powder to the remainder of frosting and mix until well combined, adding additional milk to maintain consistency.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, core them. (You can use a cupcake corer, the back end of a large piping tip, or....you can do what I do and cut the cores out with a plastic knife. Up to you!)

Fill cupcakes with colored fillings using a piping bag or a spoon - I made six of each color.

I used brown fondant to cover the cupcakes and make the 'brims' of the hats – fondant can be purchased, or it’s fairly easy to make your own! I like Amy’s Confectionary Adventures recipe.

Whichever type of fondant you decide to use, soften it slightly in the microwave and then roll it out into a large sheet on a cutting board or clean countertop. Use a biscuit cutter or a large glass roughly the size of your cupcakes, and cut out 24 fondant circles. Place these over the tops of your cupcakes.

Transfer the chocolate frosting into a large piping bag fitted with a large round tip. Pipe in large swirls onto your cupcakes and top each one with a chocolate kiss. Add Harry Potter cupcake toppers – to be completely honest, I thought they helped a *lot* to keep the cupcakes from looking just like the poop emoji    ><

Done and done! Enjoy!