Rich chocolate cupcakes and mocha buttercream nestled in an edible marshmallow mug…how much fun is that??
The past two posts have been full of my adventures with my friend Megan from Happily Ever After Cakes. We made chocolate cut-out cookie pops decorated with royal icing and fondant-covered cupcakes decorated with fun ladybugs and caterpillars. This is the third and final project from that weekend and I just love how it turned out!
This project starts with easy mini mocha cupcakes with mocha buttercream frosting. You can stop there and they are just wonderfully yummy –even without the mug!
The mug uses my new-found love of marshmallow fondant to add a little “wow” factor to the cupcakes.
Let’s start with the cupcakes: (printer friendly recipe)
INGREDIENTS: (makes and frosts 48 mini cupcakes)
- One box of chocolate cake mix (plus eggs, oil and water to make according to box)
- 3 Tablespoons of instant coffee granules (divided)
- 2 sticks (1 cup) of salted butter- softened to room temperature
- 2 sticks (1 cup) of unsalted butter- softened to room temperature
- 3 cups of powdered sugar
- 2 Tablespoons of vanilla
DIRECTIONS:
- Preheat oven to 350F degrees
- Make cake according to box, but add 2 Tablespoons of coffee granules to the water required by cake mix first.
- Allow granules to dissolve and then add to cake mix with eggs and oil according to box.
- Place mini cupcake liners into mini cupcake pan and spoon batter into liners.
- Bake for about 12 minutes until centers are firm.
- Cool completely
- Make buttercream by placing vanilla and remaining 1 Tablespoon of instant coffee into a small bowl to dissolve.
- Add butters and powdered sugar to a large bowl and beat on high until light and fluffy.
- Remove a small bit of this vanilla-free icing to garnish the tops of cupcakes and set aside.
- Add vanilla/coffee mixture and beat again until well- combined.
- To make plain cupcakes, just pipe coffee frosting on top of cooled mini cupcakes and then pipe a tiny bit of the white frosting at the tip of the cupcake.
- Sprinkle with cocoa powder if desired.
Yum.
To make the cupcakes into little edible mugs, you will need to make fondant and a thick buttercream ahead of time. My previous post goes into great detail on making fondant and buttercream icing. Click here to see the entire process.
If you’d like to print the recipes for these two things:
Printer friendly recipe for thick buttercream icing
Printer friendly recipe for marshmallow fondant
Once you’ve made both of these items, assembling the little mugs is fairly easy:
- Unwrap the mini cupcakes you wish to use in mugs.
- Spread thick buttercream icing around the sides of each cupcake.
- Roll fondant out fairly thick and trim into rectangles that wrap around mini cupcake and touch without overlapping. (You’ll need to grab a cupcake and experiment until you know how long and high to make these)
- Also cut small strips of fondant to use as mug handles.
- Wrap sides of mug around the frosted edge of each mini cupcake and seal the edges by brushing with a bit of water and holding together.
- Attach the handle over the sealed edge with a bit of water.
- Set mugs on a plate or dish with a lipped edge to hold the handle in place until it sets.
- Once handle is dried in place, pipe mocha frosting on top of cupcake to fill mug in.
- Spread frosting flat and pipe a tiny bit of the white frosting on top.
- Sprinkle with cocoa powder if desired.
Megan (more artistic than I!) decorated some mugs to personalize them for us. She used decorating brushes with gel food coloring to paint the cups….aren’t they cute????
My thoughts: These are really yummy cupcakes- even without the mugs. The mugs are a little time consuming, but if you want something REALLY unique and fun they are both! The marshmallow fondant got rave reviews from our friends– they loved it and ate the entire mug with the cupcake.
When you bite in, it is quite the surprise….so fun!!!! Enjoy!!!
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EASYBAKED 
Wow. Ruthanne, these are incredible!!! When I saw the first picture I actually didn’t notice that the cups were made of marshmallow. So, so clever and I bet they’re delicious! Thanks for sharing your recipes and extra tips. I’ve bookmarked this for my niece’s next birthday in a couple of months. I think she’ll love them 🙂
I think they would be such a fun birthday party idea- you could skip the coffee and just make them hot cocoa mugs for kids. They might have fun painting their mugs with gel food coloring too- like Megan did for us.
That’s a great idea! Are they gel pens with food colouring in them? I’ll have to take a look. My niece will be turning 10 – a great age for drawing and eating gorgeous chocolatey marshmallowy goodness! Thanks for the ideas. I’m pretty excited! 🙂
They are just gel icing colors. Mine come in little jars. I use Wilton brand- then just get some really fine-tipped brushes and paint! One tip: get some white food coloring and add it to the darker gel colors to make them more vivid. I used a little plate to make my colors up- like a painter. I have a post coming in a couple of weeks that shows exactly how to paint on fondant….so stay tuned 😉
Oh, great idea with the white colouring. I’ll keep that in mind! Sounds like so much fun… will look out for your new post (and plan our baking and painting activity over here!) x
L’ha ribloggato su Esperimentidizucchero's Bloge ha commentato:
Very nice, it’s a good idea…
These are absolutely adorable! What a great idea!
Thank you!!!!
That’s incredible idea. Especially that photo that you break it into a half, that’s really beautiful. Amazing!
Thank you! It was so fun cutting it in half that I just *had* to take a picture!!
So amazing … I can’t wait to try it out! Thank you for this very cool treat! 🙂
You’re so welcome!! Hope you have fun making them (and eating them!!!)
Yes, eating them is half the fun, isn’t it? 😉
Lol- maybe a little more than half the fun! 😉
these are too cute!!
Thank you!!!!
This is tooooo cute Ruthanne! you keep coming up with the coolest ideas!! 🙂
Thank you!!!!
Incredible, so creative and so beautiful! your photo’s are amazing as are the cupcakes in those adorable edible mugs. Brava!!
I’m so glad you like them 🙂
They are super-cute!!!
Thanks!!
this is so creative and versatile. one of the cutest things i’ve seen on a food blog in a while!
That’s very sweet of you to say- thank you!!!
These are the cutest things I’ve seen in a long time! The cupcakes sound incredible, and the presentation is just wonderful. ❤
Thank you so much! Really enjoyed browsing your site as well!!!
OMG THEY ARE SO CUTE!! And I get to eat the mug?!? My mind is officially blown. 😀
In the best possible way heehee.
So happy to have found your blog and those edible fondant mugs – so creative. Your photographs are wonderful. I can’t wait to read through and enjoy more of your posts!
So happy you are here! Thank you and welcome!!!
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This is wayyy too creative. I wish I could make something this cool. Well done!
Thank you– and I’m positive you could– it really wasn’t too hard.. just a little time consuming…
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This is so cute!
Thank you!
Looks really good!
Thanks Lavina!!!!
Hi, looking to do a “hot chocolate” approach… do you know if it’s possible to pour a liquid in the mug ? Any suggestions on how to seal that or is the fondant strong enough so liquid wouldn’t seep through? Thanks !
Hi Katie! SO sorry it took me forever to reply to you- I took a two year break from blogging- but I’m back! The fondant will dissolve with liquid (it’s like a thick frosting made with marshmallows). You could do a hot chocolate mousse or pipe a chilled pudding in maybe- but I’d say that anything liquid or warm would be a problem 🙂
Simply adorable! How long do the mugs need to set up or dry?
SO sorry it has taken me so long to reply- I took a break from blogging for a couple years- but I’m back 🙂 The mugs don’t actually need a ton of time to set. We used them within an hour or so of making them 🙂