Panda Bear Cupcakes

With my boyfriend’s birthday coming up I knew there is nothing he wouldn’t love more than some tasty homemade cupcakes.  We have a little joke about panda bears so I thought why not make my cupcakes themed of pandas. I must admit the idea wasn’t all my own but I did incorporate some elements of my own!

 The original idea for the standing bear cupcake is from the Hello, Cupcake!  cupcake decorating cook book! Mine weren’t as cute as the book, but they came together much better than I thought they would, and were delicious too!

I used all white cake mix for these two cupcakes, and I cheated and used box mix because I knew decorating would take a while. When you make the cupcakes, make a full pan of large cupcakes and full pan of mini ones.

The mini cupcakes will only need about 10 minutes in the oven, just try to keep an eye on them. I read that they should even bake at 325 degrees instead of 350, but I baked them at 350 so I could do all the cupcakes together, and they were still great.

Next, wipe  the cream off of Oreo cookies and place outer cookies into a plastic bag, about 10 cookies.

Smash the Oreos until they have become a fine powder, and shake out bag into a soup bowl.

Mix frosting. I used the Vanilla Buttercream from the Betty Crocker cookbook.

3 cups of powdered sugar

1/3 cup of butter

1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla

1-2 tablespoons of milk as needed

This vanilla frosting is used for the mini cupcakes; the panda bear heads.

After I was done with Vanilla frosting I converted it into a cocoa butter cream frosting for the bear bodies. All you have to do is add less than 1/3 cup of chocolate powder, a teaspoon more of vanilla and 2 tablespoons more of milk. This frosting turned out beautifully! I was actually much happier with the quality and taste compared to my vanilla frosting!

Frost the panda bear bodies and lightly dip tops of cupcakes in Oreo crumbs. You might have to work with this a little, but be gentle so not to smush the cupcakes.

I piped the remaining cocoa frosting and used it as adhesive for getting the panda face and arms to the body cupcake.

When cutting the Oreo arms, be careful because they break easily. Eventually I ended up just using half a cookie broke into two.

Use black gel and chocolate chips to decorate! How cute :)

I also made cupcakes with just a panda bear face…

This was so easy! Use the same vanilla butter cream frosting as before; I tried to spread the frosting to make a bump on the cupcake where the nose would be. Decorate with black gel, chocolate chips and chocolate wafers!

You will probably still have left over cake mix and frosting so I made these cute little treats as well!

Enjoy!