Reindeer Cupcakes

Day 15 of holiday baking features these uber-cute reindeer cupcakes...perfectly timed to help all of us here at Recipe Shoebox celebrate National Cupcake Day today in style.  If you're looking for more gourmet-ish cupcakes, go take a gander at my teen daughter's cupcake blog.  Those Andes Mint Cupcakes she posted today were out-of-this-world! 

These cute little reindeer fellows were a hit to eat and to make among the little people at our house and I'm thinking they'd be a perfect time-filler for a snowy day (or as a holiday distraction).  They needed help breaking the pretzels correctly, but otherwise made these completely by themselves.  I was worried about the finding the white M&M's for the eyes, but ended up finding them in a bag of holiday mint M&M's that had red, white, and green candies....perfect for this project.  Once again I recommend buying the candy at a drug store like Walgreens.  They have better selection and better prices than a grocery store.   Have fun baking! 

Happy National Cupcake Day!

Recipe Inspiration:  Family Fun

Click here for printable recipe. 

The ingredients (per cupcake): 


one baked cupcake
Chocolate frosting
1 mini vanilla wafers (snout)
1 red or brown M&M (for the nose)
2 large pretzels (antlers) *see note in the directions below
2 white M&M's (look for the holiday mint flavored M&M's or use a white chocolate chip turned upside down)
1 mini tootsie roll (ears)
black decorating gel (eyeball)


Directions:  Generously frost the cupcake with chocolate frosting.

Place the mini vanilla wafer near the bottom center of the cupcake.  Place a small amount of the frosting onto the back of the red or brown M&M and attach it to the top center of the vanilla wafer.  Carefully break pretzels as shown below ( I over-broke several pretzels before I got it just right, so you may want to be prepared with extra pretzels).  

NOTE:  I've drawn lines on the top pretzel, to illustrate where its breaking points are.

Attach the pretzels at the top of the cupcake, pointing diagonally outward. 

After the pretzel antlers are arranged, add the M&M eyes into place (for me it was directly above the vanilla wafer snout). 

Slice the tootsie roll in half lengthwise, then using the warmth of your fingers mold the tootsie roll halves into ear shapes. 

Attach the ears just outside the pretzel antlers.  With the black decorating gel, add a little eyeball in the center of each white M&M.  Admire the cuteness! 

Beware, these are somewhat fragile with the pretzel antlers in place, so if you're traveling with them, you may want to think of adding the antlers after you're there (or using mini candy canes or much smaller pretzels). 

Enjoy!

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