Recipe Details

Christmas Reindeer Cupcakes

These cute reindeer cupcakes are the perfect dessert for Christmas and kids can help in the decorating by attaching Rudolph's red candy nose.

Makes:12 servings

Ingredients

9 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1½ cups sifted self-rising flour
½ cup milk
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 drop brown food coloring
6 vanilla wafer cookies (such as Nilla®)
12 red jelly beans
24 candy eyeballs
24 chewy chocolate-flavored candy (such as Tootsie Roll®)
24 pretzels

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Directions

Prep:1 h Cook:20 mReady:2 h 25 m

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line cups with paper liners.
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.
Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes.
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.
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.
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.