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.
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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 think about nothing but decorating cupcakes. It’s meditative, and yes, maybe a little weird. Does anyone else share this with me?
Panda Mini Cupcakes Supplies
- 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 Panda Face
You’ve made your delicious mini cupcakes and buttercream, now you will 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 Panda Ears, Eyes, and Nose
The next step to your panda's is to add the chocolate chips. You’ll need five chocolate chips per mini cupcake; these will be the ears, eyes, and nose.
For the eyes, place your chocolate chip upside down so the point of the chip is in the buttercream. For the nose, you could also place the point of the chip pointing into the buttercream, or sideways with the point of the chip facing down. For the ears, stick them in on an angle at the top of the mini cupcake; the buttercream frosting is your glue!
Step 3 | The Panda Mouth
Your mini cupcakes are starting to look like panda bears, but they still need mouths. For the mouths, arrange 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 then you can pipe on the mouths using brown or black buttercream and a no.2 round decorating tip.
Step 4 | The Panda Pupils
The last step to your Panda Mini Cupcakes is perfecting the eyes. You want to dab 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
There you have it, Panda Mini Cupcakes. SO CUTE you want to shovel them in your mouth?
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