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Reindeer Cupcakes

Posted By Lizzy Mae Early On In Cake Mix,Chocolate,Chocolate Cupcakes,Christmas,Cupcakes,Devil's Food Cake Mix,Kid Friendly Cupcakes | Comments Disabled

The CUTEST Christmas Cupcakes! These Reindeer Cupcakes steal the show at every party and with a red nose they can be Rudolph Cupcakes! 

Cute Christmas Cupcakes… Rudolph the red nosed cupcake!

You’ll notice I made my own candy eyes using M&M’s but you can always just buy candy eyes at the grocery store in the baking aisle! Back when I made these the first time, candy eyes were only sold at specialty stores like Michales and Hobby Lobby, but today candy eyes are in most grocery stores which is a BIG win!  I love using them at Christmas and Halloween.  These Rudolph Reindeer Cupcakes are always a huge hit with kids because they’re easy and fun to make AND best of all they turn out like the picture! I love using simple store-bought items to make my little desserts come alive because it sets you and your kids up for success.  No pinterest fail memes for this recipe!

A decorating tip with kids: Put all the decorating ingredients like the vanilla wafers, red M&M, brown M&M’s, mini pretzels and candy eyes in a cupcake pan (muffin tin).  Each ingredient can be in different “wells” so they stay separated.  You could also place them in cupcake wrappers on a plate.  When I do my kids decorating classes I try to keep everything as organized as possible because it seems to keep the kids a little more tidy too.

Look at the adorable Rudolph! You could make 12 Rudolphs of just one to lead the pack!

Cute Reindeer Cupcakes

You can use a scratch recipe for the cupcakes but I tend to leave the flour, sugar, and everything else in the pantry and just pull out a good-ole cake mix.

There are 16 days until Christmas! I wrapped a pile of presents and sent out family Christmas cards, now I just need a tree! I’ll confess I’ve been watching Christmas movies since mid November and still going strong every night with a cup of hot chocolate.  Thanks to Netflix, the Lifetime and Hallmark channels I will never run out of cheesy Christmas romances full of mistletoe, perfect snow and flying reindeer.

These aren’t something new, there have been a lot of posts on blogs about these cute cakes.  But I couldn’t seem to find a really good how-to post, so I thought I’d offer my take on them.  Now, there are a few ways to do the pretzel antlers but I like this way because it’s the most simple and really easy to pack and deliver to friends and family.  

I used Nilla Wafers (or store brand) for the muzzles, brown M&M’s for the noses, and white chocolate mint M&M’s for the eyes with a dot of melted chocolate.

I hope you love these cute Christmas cupcakes as much as my family does! Enjoy them at home and at your holiday party this year!

4.94 from 15 votes
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Reindeer Cupcakes

Ingredients

Chocolate Cake:

  • 1 box devil's food cake mix
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 C. oil
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 C. milk or buttermilk
  • 1/2 C. sour cream

Chocolate Frosting:

  • 1 C. butter
  • 1/3 C. unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2-3 C. powdered sugar
  • 2 Tbsp. milk

Pretzles, for antlers

Nilla Wafers, for muzzles

Brown M&M's for noses (some red for Rudolph)

White Mint M&M's for eyes

Instructions

  1. 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.
  2. 2. Sift cake mix into a small bowl and set aside.
  3. 3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, oil, vanilla extract, milk and sour cream until smooth.
  4. 4. Stir in cake mix.
  5. 5. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 16-20 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
  6. 6. Let cool.
  7. 7. Chocolate frosting: Beat butter. Add cocoa powder, 2 C. powdered sugar and milk. Slowly add more powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency.
  8. 8. Prep reindeer "faces" by using frosting to stick brown M&M's on Nilla Wafers (some red for Rudolphs if you want). Melt down a few chocolate chips, put in a small plastic bag, snip off the tip to make a mini piping bag and "dot" little eyeballs on the white M&M's to make eyes.
  9. 9. Frost cupcakes.
  10. 10. (See photos below) Place Nilla wafers with M&M's on cupcakes, then place pretzels above. Use a little frosting to stick on 2 eyes and there you go!

Rudolph!

These are seriously so cute and easy for anyone to make!