Christmas Reindeer Cupcakes

  5.0 – 5 reviews  • Cakes

These festive reindeer cupcakes are adorable and tasty. Get the kids involved in the decorating process for a ton of family amusement.

Prep Time: 1 hr
Cook Time: 20 mins
Additional Time: 1 hr 5 mins
Total Time: 2 hrs 25 mins
Servings: 12
Yield: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

  1. 9 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
  2. ¾ cup white sugar
  3. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  4. 2 eggs
  5. 1 ½ cups sifted self-rising flour
  6. ½ cup milk
  7. 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
  8. 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
  9. 1 tablespoon milk
  10. 1 drop brown food coloring
  11. 6 vanilla wafer cookies (such as Nilla®)
  12. 12 red jelly beans
  13. 24 candy eyeballs
  14. 24 chewy chocolate-flavored candy (such as Tootsie Roll®)
  15. 24 pretzels

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line cups with paper liners.
  2. Combine 9 tablespoons butter, white sugar, and vanilla extract in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well combined. Fold in half the flour and 1/4 cup milk and stir to combine. Repeat with remaining flour and milk. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full.
  3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes.
  4. Remove the tin from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes from the tin and cool completely on a wire rack before decorating, about 1 hour.
  5. Combine confections’ sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1 tablespoon milk in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Thin frosting with a little milk or water, if necessary. Add food coloring and stir until frosting is uniformly brown. Add more food coloring, 1 drop at a time, until frosting is the color you like.
  6. Spread a thin layer of frosting on top of each cupcake. Break vanilla cookies in half. Place half a cookie on each cupcake as a mouth. Use a bit of frosting to glue a jelly bean onto the cookie for Rudolph’s red nose. Stick 2 candy eyeballs into each cupcake. Break off a piece from each pretzel so they look like antlers and stick 2 onto the top of each cupcake. Shape chewy candies into ears and stick 2 onto the sides of each cupcake.
  7. Instead of brown-colored icing for the reindeer cupcakes, you can use chocolate buttercream icing, which will be naturally brown.
  8. You could color the frosting any color, such as red, blue, or green. Then use white ready-rolled fondant icing to cut out Christmas-inspired shapes to stick on top of the cupcakes. Try stars, Christmas trees, holly leaves, or other holiday-inspired shapes. Silver dragees also make a festive addition to sprinkle on top.
  9. These cupcakes are great any time of year if you skip the reindeer decorating!

Nutrition Facts

Calories 427 kcal
Carbohydrate 77 g
Cholesterol 57 mg
Dietary Fiber 2 g
Protein 6 g
Saturated Fat 7 g
Sodium 815 mg
Sugars 36 g
Fat 14 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Linda Smith
I would suggest adding up to 3-1/2 Tbsp of butter to the frosting.
Rebecca Bass
Didn’t change a thing. This was a trial run, but I’ll definitely be making them for Christmas for my grand babies. They loved them!
Laura Rodriguez
They are adorable! Got lots of compliments at Christmas parties! Take a while so plan for that when making.
Aaron Sheppard
The Reindeer Cupcakes were a big hit with our family and neighbors. I did not use red jelly beans (too big). Jellybeans are not always available anyway; instead, I used Imperials (red cinnamon candies) found in the baking section of many stores.
Jonathan Bass
My rating is just for the topping, not the actual cupcake. So adorable!

 

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