There is no doubt that birthday cakes are delicious and sweet to eat at a birthday party. Whether it was chocolate cake, vanilla cake, or cheesecake, you have probably enjoyed eating a slice of cake at a birthday party, at your own birthday or a friend’s birthday. However, it is now becoming more and more popular to eat cupcakes at birthday parties. Cupcakes are easy to serve, as you don’t have to slice them like cake. And if you take the time, cupcakes can be decorated in adorable cupcake designs. If you are wondering if you should serve cupcakes at your child’s birthday party, read on. In this article I’ll go over some adorable birthday cupcake ideas that you may be interested in. Let’s get started.
Dinosaur Birthday Cupcake Ideas
Image Source: Two Sisters
Do your kids love dinosaurs? If so, you may want to try making these adorable dinosaur cupcakes. These dinosaur cupcakes only show the spikes of a Stegosaurus, but if you wanted you could buy cupcake toppings. Better yet, you could learn how to make cupcake toppers that look like dinosaurs. If you are interested in making these dinosaur birthday cupcake ideas, here are the directions.
Ingredients:
- Chocolate cupcakes
- Buttercream frosting
- Wilton Color Right Food Coloring System
- Wilton Star Candy Molds
- Wilton candy melts (choose what colors you want)
- Decorating bags
- Decorating tips for the frosting
- Sharp knife
Instructions:
- Put the Wilton candy melts into the microwave. Let them melt. Once the candy has melted, put them in the star candy molds. After that, place them in the freezer to harden.
- After about 20 minutes, the candy should be hard. Using a sharp knife, cut off each point of the star-shaped candy. These will be the spikes of the dinosaur. You should be able to get 4 to 5 spikes out of each star, depending on how you cut it.
- Next, you must make the frosting. You can find the recipe here for making buttercream frosting. Once the frosting is made, add the food coloring.
- Either before or after you make the frosting, you must make the cupcakes. These cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes, but you can do any flavor you’d like. Click here if you want to make chocolate cupcakes.
- Once the cupcakes are made, use the decorating tips and decorating bags to apply the frosting.
- With the point up and the cut side down, press the candy melt dinosaur spikes down into the frosting in a straight row.
- And there you have it! These dinosaur cupcakes will be a hit at your child’s birthday party.
Olaf Birthday Cupcakes
Image Source: Disney Family
Who doesn’t love Olaf from the movie Frozen? If your kids are fans of the Disney movie Frozen, they will most likely love these Olaf cupcakes. These Olaf cupcakes are almost too cute to eat. Just make sure the temperature in the room is right. You don’t want these snowman cupcakes to melt!
Ingredients:
- Cupcakes (pick the flavor you want)
- Buttercream frosting
- Orange pliable candy (such as taffy) cut into narrow triangle “noses”
- Candy eyes or mini chocolate chips for eyes
- Small, rectangular pieces of chewing gum, cut in half horizontally
- Several strands of black licorice, cut into “hair”
- Black frosting
Instructions:
- Begin by making the cupcakes. Decide what flavor cupcakes you want them to be. Click here if you want a simple cupcake recipe.
- Next, apply the buttercream frosting to the cupcakes. You can make your own buttercream frosting by clicking here. Make sure you leave the buttercream frosting white so that it looks like a snowman.
- Add the candy eyes and nose (which would be the orange pliable candy) to your snowman cupcake.
- Insert licorice “hair” and draw on eye brows and a grin, using the black frosting. Insert half a piece of gum into the mouth for teeth.
Buttercakes With Sour Cream Frosting
Recipe by Better Homes & Gardens
Image Source: Better Homes & Gardens
Not only do these birthday cupcakes make great treats for kids, but they can also be used for adult birthday parties. These cute birthday cupcakes are very pretty and will work with almost any birthday party theme.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup buttermilk
- 1 Sour Cream frosting
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line twenty-four 2-1/2-inch muffin cups with paper bake cups.
- In large mixing bowl beat butter with electric mixer on medium-high for about 1 minute. Add sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Add flour mixture in two additions, alternating with buttermilk, and beating on low after each addition until combined.
- Fill lined muffin cups about 2/3 full. Bake 15 to 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely on wire rack.
- Frost with Sour Cream Frosting. Refrigerate 2 to 24 hours.
Mario Cupcakes
Image Source: Amazon
Mario is a fictional character in the Mario video game. Although Mario has been around since 1981, this video game is becoming more popular in this day and age. If your child is a fan of the Mario video game, you may want to serve these Mario cupcakes at your child’s next birthday party. There are many ways to make these birthday cupcakes, but one easy way to make them is to add a cupcake topper to the top of them.
You can also have fun decorating the cupcakes with frosting. Because the Mario series includes many different themes, you can have fun decorating the cupcakes with different cupcake designs. For example, you can decorate the cupcakes to look like mushrooms since some of the video games are about Mario saving the Mushroom Kingdom. Or you can buy cheap cupcake toppings like these on Amazon.
Cookie Monster Cupcakes
Recipe by Kid Spot
Image Source: Kid Spot
You can add any Sesame Street characters to these cupcakes, but Cookie Monster is definitely adorable on these cupcakes. With pieces of cookies inside his mouth, your kids will most likely laugh at the sight of these cupcakes. These cupcakes are also delicious to eat. Not only are they chocolate cupcakes with marshmallows for eyes, but they also contain pieces of chocolate chip cookies. Here’s how to make them:
Ingredients:
- Chocolate cupcakes
- 2 sticks butter, softened
- 2 1/2 cups icing mixture
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- blue food coloring
- 1 tbsp milk
- 1 packet white marshmallows
- 1 tube black writing icing
- 12 chocolate chip cookies (1/2 per monster with a few for breakage)
Instructions:
- Using an electric mixer, whip the butter until it is pale. This will take at least 5 minutes on high.
- Gradually add in the icing mixture and vanilla until well combined.
- With the mixer running, add in food coloring until you get to the Cookie Monster color. This may be a lot if you are using liquid food coloring or a little if using gel food coloring.
- Add in the milk and mix until the frosting puffs up.
- Fill a piping bag with a fluted nozzle and pipe on icing.
- With the writing icing, place black spots on the marshmallows for pupils.
- Place on each cupcake.
- Cut cookies in half and place in ‘mouth’.
Final Thoughts
I hope you found this list of birthday cupcake ideas to be helpful. Cupcakes are easier to serve than birthday cakes, because you don’t need to cut them and serve them on a plate. Birthday cupcakes can also be very adorable. In this article I went over 5 birthday cupcake ideas that are easy to make and look adorable at birthday parties.
From dinosaur cupcakes to Cookie Monster cupcakes, your kids will most likely fall in love with these delicious desserts. If you don’t have the time for decorating cupcakes with frosting, you can quickly make adorable cupcakes by adding cupcake toppings. The most important thing is to have fun. Oh, and don’t forget to share some of the cupcakes with your kids!
Related Article: 10 Tips To Throwing A Fabulous First Birthday Party
