Categories: Dessert Recipes

Awesome Panda Cupcake Decorating Ideas to Feast Your Eyes

With only a few basic ingredients, you can decorate cupcakes as cute little pandas. Tastessence gives you simple and awesome panda cupcake decorating ideas along with basic recipes for preparing cupcakes and frosting.

Amateur Bakers Beware!

Read the entire recipe before starting.
Never use cold ingredients.
Fill the cupcake liners evenly.
Use an oven thermometer to check the oven’s internal temperature.
Don’t open the oven door to peek on the cupcakes; let them bake for at least 12-14 minutes first.

Baking cupcakes at home is no small task. If you’re not comfortable making desserts, this can be a challenge for you like many others. In addition to learning to make these mini treats from sugary heaven, you’ll also need to master the art of making the frosting. And thanks to spreading a plain frosting on top just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Well, folks, not only can you make mouth-watering cupcakes with frosting, but you can also decorate them to look like little pandas. Surprised? Don’t be as you will find the information on panda cupcake decorations along with recipes for cupcakes and frosting.

Freshly-baked cupcakes smell divine and can hardly be resisted. But, you must resist the urge to dig in before you’ve had the chance to spread the frosting on it. Plus, there’s another reason – if you start spreading the frosting early on, the frosting will melt and turn your gorgeous cupcakes into a disaster. Hence, leave the cupcakes on a metal rack to cool down completely before you begin decorating it.

Step – First, make a decision on what type of cupcake you’d like to work with. We have used a chocolate cupcake, but you can work with a vanilla pudding-filled cupcake as well (both recipes below). Basically, any kind of cupcake will do.

Step– To spread frosting on the cupcakes, you can either dip it in a small bowl of frosting or use a pastry bag. For the latter, fill a pastry bag with frosting, cut a small hole on top, and place a round pastry tip. Starting from the middle of the cupcake, squeeze out the frosting and move in a circular motion.

Step – Place a bowl of coconut flakes and granulated sugar each on your workstation.

Once the frosting is on, either dip it in a bowl of coconut flakes or granulated sugar. This will give a wonderful texture for the panda’s face. Do this for all the cupcakes.

Step – Now it’s time to decorate the panda’s face with chocolate chips. Use it to make the ears and nose on the cupcakes.

Step – Use chocolate frosting to draw the mouth on each cupcake. Plus, you can make female panda cupcakes as well. All you have to do is place fondant flowers or bows on top.

Panda Cupcake Designs

With the proper steps mentioned above, you can now easily create different types of faces on the cupcakes. Once you get the hang of the decoration, you can experiment with not just the faces, but also with the cupcake and frosting flavors.

While preparing the mixture for the frosting, you can add 2-4 drops of food coloring; the actual quantity will differ depending on how bright you want the color to appear.

Simple Recipes to Make

Now that you know about cupcake decoration, we thought that providing the recipes for chocolate and pudding-filled cupcakes along with vanilla frosting would be helpful too. These recipes will only aid you in making the panda cupcakes. So, depending on your preference, choose either of the cupcakes, make the light and fluffy frosting, and get cracking on the decorations.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Prep Time: 30 mins.
Cook Time: 60 mins.
Serving Size: 12

Ingredients

Sugar, 1 cup
Sour cream, ½ cup
Cocoa powder, unsweetened, ¾ cup
All-purpose flour, ¾ cup
Unsalted butter, room temp., ¾ cup
Vanilla extract, 1 tsp.
Baking powder, ½ tsp.
Salt, ¼ tsp.
Eggs, large, 3

Directions

Preheat the oven at 350°F and line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners; set it aside.
Sift and combine all the dry ingredients―cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt, in a bowl.
In another bowl, whisk sour cream, butter, and sugar together until you get a light and fluffy consistency.
One by one, add the eggs in and beat until it all incorporates properly. Next, add the vanilla extract.
In an electric stand mixer, alternately add both wet and dry ingredients; but make sure that you begin and end with the dry ingredients.
Make sure you don’t overmix the batter as it can make the cupcakes heavy. Once the batter is ready, fill the cups only ¾ of the way.
Place the pan in the oven and let the cupcakes bake for 20-25 minutes. Do a toothpick test to check whether the cupcakes have cooked all the way through.
Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the cupcakes onto a wire rack so they can cool down completely before you spread the frosting.

Vanilla Pudding-filled

Prep Time: 30 mins.
Cook Time: 45 mins.
Serving Size:12

Ingredients for Pudding

Vanilla instant pudding, 1, 3.4 oz.
Whole milk, cold, 1¼ cups
Vanilla extract, 1 tbsp.

Ingredients for Vanilla Cupcakes

All-purpose flour, 1½ cups
Sugar, 1 cup
Whole milk, room temp., ⅔ cup
Vanilla extract, 2 tsp.
Baking powder, 1¼ tsp.
Salt, ¼ tsp.
Eggs, large, 2
Unsalted butter, room temp., 1 stick

Directions

First, let’s make the pudding mixture. In a bowl, combine all three ingredients and beat with a hand mixer until you get a thick consistency.
Keep the bowl inside the refrigerator and start to prepare the cupcakes.
Preheat the oven at 350°F and line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners; set it aside.
Sift and combine all the dry ingredients―flour, baking powder, and salt―in a bowl.
In an electric stand mixer, add butter and sugar together, and beat until you get fluffy consistency.
One by one, add the eggs in and beat until it all incorporates properly. Next, add the vanilla extract.
Reduce the speed to include the dry ingredients.
Make sure you don’t overmix the batter as it can make the cupcakes heavy. Once the batter is ready, fill the cups only ¾ of the way.
Place the pan in the oven and let the cupcakes bake for approximately 20 minutes. Do a toothpick test to check whether the cupcakes have cooked all the way through.
Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the cupcakes onto a wire rack so it can cool down completely.
Meanwhile, spoon the pudding mix into a pastry bag with a small decorating tip.
Fill generous amount of pudding into each cupcake and set it aside.

Vanilla Frosting

Prep Time: 5 mins.
Cook Time: 10 mins.
Serving Size: 12

Ingredients

Confectioners’ sugar, 4 cups
Unsalted butter, room temp., 1 cup
Heavy cream, ¼ cup
Vanilla extract, 2 tsp.
Salt, to taste

Directions

For 2 minutes, either beat the butter in an electric stand mixer or a handheld mixer.
Slowly, add confectioners’ sugar (sifted), heavy cream, and vanilla extract in, and mix the ingredients on medium speed.
Once combined, increase the speed to beat the frosting for 3 minutes.
Do a taste test to check if the frosting isn’t too sweet. If it is, add a pinch of salt in the end.
The consistency of frosting should be smooth, yet fluffy. If the frosting is too thin, add confectioners’ sugar. On the other hand, if the frosting is too thick, add heavy cream.

Prepare these adorable cupcakes for a themed birthday party, for a bake sale, or to bring a smile on everyone’s faces. They are easy to make, cute and cuddly to look at, and incredibly delicious to eat.