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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.
Yum! I love the marshmallow snow!! So cute! New follower!
Karen
Thank you and thank you for following!
So so CUTE! I need to make these with my boys – pinned 🙂 Thank you for sharing at All my Bloggy Friends!
These are perfect to make with you kids! Let me know how they turn out!
I agree…the cutest cupcakes of the season!!! I love that you photographed them in the “snow” too! I am pinning this one for sure!!!
THanks for pinning and I just have to have snow! You can not do Reindeer without snow!
These are just beyond cute adorable amazing! Love it and I’ll be making these. I hope mine turn out as cute!
Let me know how your go! They are supper easy! Have fun with them!
So Cute!…. & tasty looking. Thank yoiu for sharing…
These Have to be the Cutest Christmas Cupcakes I have seen all year! Seriously Hands Down the Cutest! I would love to have you link up at my New Linky Party “Show Me Your Plaid Monday’s”
http://www.pandpkitchen.com/2012/12/02/show-me-your-plaid-mondays-1/
Thanks for the invite and the amazing comments!
OMG, I LOVE this! And Love that you photographed these in mini marshmallows!!! Brilliant!
These are so adorable!
Thanks for linking up! I featured your post in my wrap up http://tidymom.net/2012/unique-ideas-for-christmas/
Have a great rest of the weekend.
So glad you like them! Thanks for featuring them! MY little sister went crazy for them!
So adorable!!! I love these! These would be so great for school parties!
THanks! Kids do go CRAZY for them!
Super super cute my little pastry chef will have fun making these. thanks for sharing them on foodie friday.
Let me know what you guys think!
My daughter is going to make them for Christmas day.
They are the perfect Christmas day treat! Let me know what you guys think!
These are too darn cute! Look like your little one really enjoyed them!
Thank you for linking up to Foodie Friends Friday! I can’t wait to see what you bring next week!
P.S. – We would appreciate it if you would post our link somewhere on your blog. Thank you so much. http://www.foodiefriendsfriday.com/
Thank you and that is actually my 4 year old sister! But I get that all the time!
These are the cutest cupcakes I’ve ever seen. Great idea! Just pinned!
Thanks fo pinning! They really are just so cute!
Thanks so much! They are really fun!
So cute and they look like they were a lot of fun to make! They would be fun to take to a Christmas party! I’m visiting from Pin Me link party, and I’ll be pinning. Thanks for the fun idea!
Thanks for pinning and yeah if you bring them to a Christmas party everybody will be in Aw!
These are adorable! Thanks for sharing. I’m visiting from Weekend Potluck.
Thanks! They really are so much fun!
Your cupcakes are adorable! My grandchildren would be all about helping to make these!
THanks you! They are really fun and my little sister had a blast with them!