April 23, 2012

Easy Little Pandas

Panda-cupcakes_3699

I made some cute chocolate cupcakes for you today.

IMG_3348

And they’re mini, too. It’s hard to tell in this picture I know.

IMG_3408

But because the cupcakes were mini, I was able to use chocolate chips to dress them up as sweet little pandas.

Panda-cupcakes_3655

Chocolate chip covered pandas that are super easy to make.

IMG_3383

First frost your cupcakes. Use a decorator bag with Ateco Tip #807 and you can whiz right through this part.

IMG_3477

Pipe a small mound of frosting on top. You don’t need to cover the cupcake completely.

IMG_3523

Because you will be pressing it into a bowl of sanding sugar to cover all the frosting. And when you do, the frosting will spread out and cover most of the top.

IMG_3491

Like so.

Then you can start making panda faces.

Insert a chocolate chip sideways and towards the bottom for a nose.

IMG_3500

Then press two chips pointed side down into the frosting to start on the eyes and two more in position for the ears.

I used Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips because they are a little larger in diameter and were better for panda proportions.

And the great thing about covering them in sanding sugar first, is that you can easily reshape the face if necessary without getting frosting all over your fingers.

IMG_3466

If you want to add mouths, try black or chocolate jimmies and press them into the frosting.

IMG_3565

Then you just need to finish the eyes.

IMG_3615

Use a black edible ink pen to draw on white confetti sprinkles for dotted eyes and then attach them to the chips with a tiny bit of frosting to hold them in place.

You could also just pipe frosting on for eyes if you want to skip the pin and sprinkles.

Panda-cupcakes_3723

There you go. Easy little pandas.

Chocolate Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup hot water

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Fill mini cupcake tray with cupcake liners.
  • In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients together with a wire whisk.
  • Add eggs, oil, vanilla and milk and mix until combined.
  • Add hot water and mix.
  • Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full.
  • Bake for 15 minutes.
  • Cool and decorate.

To decorate, you’ll need:

  • Frosting (I used the one from this post)
  • Decorator bag and Ateco tip 807 (or just use a ziploc bac and cut an end off)
  • White sanding sugar
  • Chocolate Chips (I used Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips for their size)
  • Jimmies (Chocolate or black and you could also just leave them off)
  • Pastel confetti sprinkles (just the white ones)
  • Black edible ink pen

Panda-cupcakes_3743

Enjoy!

Categories: Chocolate, Cupcakes, Winter Time
314 Comments »