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Santa, your reindeer taste so good!
In the form of a super moist, super chocolatey cupcake. Of course, Rudolph and his friends are covered in whipped chocolate frosting that tastes almost mousse like and then decorated with chocolate covered pretzels, mini Nilla Wafers and M&Ms. Seriously, I never knew Reindeer could taste so good!
Honestly though these are the cutest cupcakes. They are so fun and so good and so simple!
They are perfect for any of your upcoming Christmas parties and trust me people with go crazy for them. Like out of their mind, do anything for these cupcakes. I was taking pictures and taking forever because I am not a photographer and taking pretty pictures is harder than you may think! Anyway, I was taking way too long because I had some very hungry people chomping at the bit for one of these guys! Someone had a bit of a meltdown because she could not wait any longer to bite Rudolph’s nose off……Asher.
The whole time I was taking pictures of these cute little guys I had some nice background music of “Tiegy I am hungry, my tummy is hungry for those cupcakes, I want Rudolph”. They are almost too cute to eat……..almost.
Chocolate Reindeer Cupcakes
Ingredients
- For the Cupcakes:
- 1 1/4 cups Granulated sugar
- 1-3/4 cups All-purpose flour
- 1 cup Cocoa
- 1-1/2 teaspoons Baking powder
- 1-1/2 teaspoons Baking soda
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 2 Eggs, room temperature*
- 1 cup Buttermilk, room temperature*
- 1/2 cup Vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
- 1 cup Coffee, boiling hot
- Whipped Chocolate Frosting:
- 3 Sticks Unsalted Butter, Softened
- 3 cups Powdered Sugar
- 3/4 cups Cocoa Powder
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 1/8 cup Milk, or more
- To assemble:
- 24 Nilla Wafers, vanilla wafer cookies
- 23 Brown M&M's or brown Reese's Pieces
- 1 Red M&M
- 48 Candy Eyes or White Chocolate Chips
- 24 Pretzel Twists, broken in half
- 1/2 cup Chocolate Chips, melted
Instructions
- For the cupcakes: Heat oven to 350°F. Line muffin cups with cupcake liners.
- Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes.
- Stir in the boiling coffee (batter will be thin). Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.
- For the frosting: Beat butter on medium speed for two minutes. Add the powdered sugar and whip until combined. Add the cocoa powder and whip until fully incorporated. Mix in the vanilla and milk. Add more milk if the frosting looks too dark. You want the color to be light brown like milk chocolate mousse. Whip for one last minute. Frost the cupcakes.
- To assemble: Line a baking sheet with wax paper. Carefully break pretzels into large antlers (I over-broke several pretzels before I got it just right, so you may want to be prepared with extra pretzels). Dip the tops of the antlers in the melted chocolate and place on the baking sheet and place in the fridge to harden.
- 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.
- Once the chocolate has hardened to the antlers remove them from the fridge and attach the pretzels at the top of the cupcake, pointing diagonally outward or inward (whatever you prefer).
- After the pretzel antlers are arranged, add the M&M or candy eyes into place (for me it was directly above the vanilla wafer snout).
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Did you make this recipe? Please rate & comment below.
Watch out Rudolph, she’s going in for the kill.
They are adorably cute that’s for sure and sound delicious. From all the reindeer you’ve made, Santa will have his whole team!
Thank you so much! xTieghan
precious cucakes. Will make dome for my grandkids
I hope they love these Theresa! Thank you!
Hi there, we love this Christmassy recipe! Would you mind if we posted it on the official Cadbury UK social media pages? We’re thinking Google+ (where you’d already posted it) and perhaps the Cadbury UK facebook page.
We promise to give you credit and what we’d probably do would be post one of the main pics, a little bit of description and then link through to the full recipe on this page… If that’s ok with you?
Sounds good! Thanks Scott!
Thanks for sharing your beautiful creation. I think I found my recipe idea to celebrate Christmas in July. Love the picture with the little girl. So gorgeous !
Thank you so much!!!
Tieghan,
Oh my goodness I can’t wait to make these with my kiddos. Maybe Santa will be getting cupcakes and candy this year instead of cookies, lol. Thanks for sharing at Creative Thursday each week. I really do look forward to all your delicious recipes each week. Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas 🙂
Michelle
Adorable!
These are super cute! You are a featured favorite this week on Saturday Show & Tell on Cheerios and Lattes! Thanks for sharing last week; we can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to this week!
Merry Christmas!
Mackenzie
Thanks so much for featuring them! Merry Christmas!
I seriously want to feature everything you link up :o) Just wanted to let you know this project is being featured in my Christmas round-up post. Thanks for linking to Tasteful Tuesdays at Nap-Time Creations. See you next year :o) This feature link will be live Friday morning US time.
http://www.nap-timecreations.com/2012/12/25-amazing-things-to-make-eat-bake.html
Wow! That is nice of you to say and do! I am so happy you like my recipes! Merry Christmas!
I made these tonight! Thanks for the inspiration. They were a big hit with my friends =)
Pinned and sharing on Facebook today! Sooo cute Tieghan!
Excellant cupcakes! They look amazing and I’m sure they taste amazing as well. I’d love for you to stop by and share these at my Marvelous Mondays party. http://www.thisgalcooks.com/2012/12/link-party-marvelous-mondays-25-with.html
Have a Merry Christmas!
Julie
So cute! I love how they turned out and the pic of the little one digging in!
These are the cutest cupcakes I’ve seen in a looooooooooooooong time.
Beautiful, creative and delicious looking!
Thank you they were really fun!
These are SO adorable! I love them!!!
These guys are powerfully cute! Thanks for bringing them to Tuesday’s Table – hope you come back next week!