Panda Mini Cupcakes – ridiculously adorable, family-friendly mini cupcakes dressed up as panda bears; fun to make, fun to share, and even more fun to eat!
One of my favorite things to do is to decorate cupcakes. I love decorating cupcakes almost as much as I love eating them! There is something SO relaxing about it. I get in my element, my head is clear, and I am thinking about nothing but decorating Panda Mini Cupcakes. It’s meditative, and yes, maybe a little weird.
Does anyone else share in this with me?
Panda Mini Cupcakes Supplies
Panda Mini Cupcakes are made up of:
- your favorite cupcake recipe
- buttercream frosting
- white sanding sugar
- chocolate chips
- chocolate sprinkles
- black royal icing dots, black sugar pearls, or black buttercream frosting
Panda Mini Cupcakes
Step 1 | The Face
You’ve got your delicious mini cupcakes and buttercream made, now you want to generously frost the top of your mini cupcake. I piped mine on using a disposable pastry bag and a no.12 round decorating tip, but a knife, offset spatula, or the corner of a plastic baggie snipped off will also suffice.
Once you’ve got your generously frosted mini cupcake you want to dip that bad boy into a bowl of white sanding sugar.
Step 2 | The Ears, Eyes, and Nose
The next step is to add the chocolate chips. You’ll need five chocolate chips per Panda Mini Cupcake; these will be your panda’s ears, eyes, and nose. For the eyes and nose place upside down so the point of the chocolate chip is in the buttercream. For the nose you could also place the point of the chip pointing down. For the ears you want to stick them in on an angle at the top of the mini cupcake; the buttercream frosting is your glue!
Step 3 | The Mouth
Your Panda Mini Cupcakes are starting to look like panda bears, but they need mouths. For the mouths I arranged chocolate sprinkles into bear mouths or little smiles by pressing the chocolate sprinkles into the buttercream frosting. This step is a little tedious and probably the most difficult because sprinkles are tiny. It’s totally worth it though! Look how cute your Panda Mini Cupcakes are turning out?
If you don’t have the patience than you can pipe on the mouths using brown or black buttercream and a no.2 round decorating tip.
Step 4 | The Pupils
The last step to your Panda Mini Cupcakes is perfecting the eyes. You want to dab on a small circle of white buttercream onto your chocolate chip eyes. I used a no.2 round decorating tip. Then you want to add the black pupil. For this I used black royal icing dots that I had made up ahead of time. You could also use black buttercream frosting with a no.2 round decorating tip or black sugar pearls.
Panda Mini Cupcakes Video Tutorial
If you like videos, here is a little video tutorial for you!
There you have it, Panda Mini Cupcakes! Aren’t they SO CUTE you want to shovel them in your mouth?
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