Snowman Cupcakes

Snowman Cupcakes

    • 12 cupcakes, any flavor

    • 2 cups white buttercream, flavored vanilla or coconut

    • 24 marshmallows

    • 12 toothpicks

    • 12 peppermint striped Hershey's kisses, chocolate peppermint bells, M&Ms, or other candy, to make the hats

    • white sparkling decorative sugar

    • piping bags, piping tips and food coloring (I used the following tips: Wilton round tips #1, 3, 4, star tip # 18, and rose tip # 101)

Decorating Instructions:

    1. Frost each of the cupcakes with a thin layer of buttercream. Place one of the marshmallows in the center of each cupcake. Top the marshmallow with a dot of buttercream, insert the toothpick in the middle and place the other marshmallow on top. (If you use a stiffer frosting, such as royal buttercream, the toothpick probably isn't necessary, but since I used a soft buttercream, I wanted to make sure the marshmallows didn't topple over so I used toothpicks.)

    2. Using the star tip, pipe stars around the edge of each cupcake. Sprinkle with the sparkling sugar.

    3. Tint very small amounts of the buttercream orange, blue and pink (or other colors of your choice). Using the round tips, pipe the eyes (#3) , buttons (#4), nose (#3) and mouth (#1). To make the carrot nose, squeeze the frosting with the tip against the marshmallow, then slowly pull away, while continuing to squeeze; push back a little, then pull further away, pushing and pulling to create the ridges, until the carrot gets smaller at the tip and then pull the tip off.

    4. To make the ruffled scarf, fit a piping bag with the rose tip. Dip a small paint brush in food color of your choice, and paint a thin stripe of color along the inside of the bag. Make sure the narrow side of the rose tip is lined up with the stripe. Scoop the buttercream, either colored or white, into the piping bag and squeeze until you start to see the stripe of color. Pipe the scarf by placing the wide side of the tip against the "seam" (where the two marshmallows meet) and the narrow side facing out, so that the stripe shows. Pipe a ruffle around the neck of the snowman, then pipe two ruffles down the side of his chest, to create the tails of the scarf.

    5. Using the round tips again, pipe the ear muffs. Lastly, squeeze a dot of frosting on top of the snowman's head and finish with a candy hat.

    6. Refrigerate for an hour to firm up the frosting, then cover and keep at room temperature until ready to serve.

Yields 12 cupcakes

Design by Curly Girl Kitchen