Christmas Reindeer Cupcakes

🧾Supplies Required

• Cupcakes - I used my vanilla cupcake recipe for the cupcakes (see the recipe card below) and baked them in medium-sized muffin cups. The recipe yielded me 20 cupcakes.
• Buttercream - I used a thin coat of vanilla buttercream on my cupcakes before attaching the reindeer toppers on. The buttercream helps hold the topper in place.
• Fondant - I used Satin Ice in white , dark chocolate , black and red .
• Food Coloring - I used Americolor Chocolate Brown to tint my white fondant for the reindeer's face.
• Shortening / Fondant Glue - I used shortening as the 'glue' in this project, except for the eyes which were attached using this glue.
• Fondant extruder tool - I used this tool to pipe out strips of dark brown for Rudolph's antlers.
• Round scalloped cutter - I used a scalloped cutter to cut out the white background for the cupcake topper.
• Round smooth cutter - This was used to cut the reindeer's face.
• Plunger cutter - I used the largest of the round cutter in my plunger cutter set for the reindeer's nose.
• Wooden skewer - This is to poke the holes in Rudolph's eyes to position his black eyes.

Step 1: Bake the Cupcakes and Make the Buttercream

Preheat oven to 170 °Celsius. Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy with a hand mixer or stand mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, sift the self raising flour, salt and baking powder. Fold in the sifted ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with milk, starting and ending with flour.

Fold in the vanilla extract and give the batter a good mix.

Pour batter into cupcake liners arranged in a cupcake pan or muffin tin until they are about two thirds full.

Bake the cupcakes for 15 to 20 minutes (depending on the size of the casing you use) or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out without any wet batter sticking to it.

Remove the cupcakes from oven and let them cool completely to room temperature on a cooling rack before leveling them (if they are domed). Set aside while you complete the reindeer cupcakes toppers.

To make the buttercream, measure the butter and powdered sugar into a large bowl. Cream until smooth and fluffy. Add vanilla extract and continue beating until smooth.

If you wish to make chocolate buttercream, add some cocoa powder to the buttercream and beat until smooth. Get the full recipe for the buttercream recipe here.

Step 2: Make the Fondant Covering for the Cupcakes

Knead and roll your white fondant to about ⅛ inch thick. You can even roll it thinner if you wish to have a thinner base.

Cut it out using a round scalloped cutter. Make sure the diameter of the cutter matches the diameter of your cupcakes. 

Step 3: Make the reindeer face

Next, tint some white fondant with brown food coloring for the reindeer's face. I used Americolor Chocolate Brown to tint the white fondant. Roll it thin and cut out medium-sized circles using a smooth round cutter.

The diameter of the cutter should be about half the size of the earlier scalloped cutter. If you cut the face too big, there will not be enough space for the reindeer's antlers, so do keep that in mind.

Attach the brown circle cutout onto the white cutout with shortening as shown below. In fact, the face should be positioned towards the lower end of the white cutout:

Step 4: Make the Reindeer Nose

Roll out some red fondant and again, cut out a circle, this time about half the size of the brown circle. Attach it with shortening towards the lower end of the brown cut out.

Note: Another option would be to use red M&M candy for the red nose.

Step 5: Make and Attach the Eyes

Pinch two tiny bits of white fondant and roll them into smooth balls. Pinch even tinier black fondant bits and roll them into smooth balls too.

Start by attaching the white balls onto the reindeer's face as shown. You can use shortening to attach these.

Once they are in place, use a skewer or the back of a thin cake decorating brush to poke a hole in the center of each of the white balls. 

Apply some fondant glue and drop the tiny black balls into the holes to complete Rudolph's eyes. Press the eyes lightly to flatten them slightly.

Note: When applying glue to the eyes, be careful not to use too much as it can cause the black to bleed. You only need to very lightly brush the glue to the fondant.

If you don't want to make the fondant eyes, you can also use candy eyes for the reindeers.

Step 6: Make the Reindeer Mouth

Next, attach the mouth. Pinch some chocolate fondant, roll it thin by hand (make the ends slightly pointy) and attach to the reindeer's face with shortening.

Step 7: Make and Attach the Fondant Antlers

Start by filling in some dark chocolate fondant into an extruder tool fitted with a small round disc.

Pipe out long strips of fondant and cut them into equal lengths. If you don't have an extruder tool, simply roll the fondant strips by hand. You would need two equal length-ed strips for the main part of the antlers. Use your fingers to roll one end of each strip pointy.  

Note: If you want to make sure all your antlers are of the same size, you can cut these antler pieces all at the same time and keep them covered as you shape each one. That way, you can make sure they are all of the same length.

Roll the pointed ends of the strips into coils as shown below:

Let the antlers set for a few minutes (you can shape the remaining antlers while waiting) and then lift them and position them above the reindeer's face. Apply a coat of shortening before putting the antlers on.

Letting the antlers set for a few minutes helps in holding the shape as you lift them to position on the reindeer's face.

Next, cut two smaller strips of chocolate fondant, roll one end of each strip pointy and coil them up slightly before attaching them to the reindeer.

Repeat the process for another set of chocolate strips. This time, position them on the top part of the antlers.

Step 8: Assemble the Cupcakes

Once reindeer toppers are done, attach them to your cupcakes. Apply a layer of buttercream to the top of the cupcakes before placing the fondant toppers on so that the toppers stay in place on the cupcakes. 

After that, carefully lift the reindeer cupcake toppers and place them onto the top of each cupcake to complete the cutest Christmas cupcakes.