Celebrate Mardi Gras right in your own kitchen with rich, vibrant, fancy cupcakes. Vanilla cupcakes with colorful buttercream frosting and topped with Mardi Gras decorations.
Mardi Gras is a day well-known for its spectacular colors, beautiful masks, wild festivities, and delicious food. It is most widely celebrated through parties, parades, and tons of delectable recipes, hence the name “Fat Tuesday”. My favorite treat to celebrate holidays with is fancy cupcakes and so that is the dessert I decided to go with this year. You too can avoid the huge crowds and celebrate at home with this Mardi Gras dessert recipe for cupcakes.
Celebrating Mardi Gras at Home
With not as many public events happening and large crowds gathering, it is unlikely to find a parade or party to attend this year. That is probably for the best but that does not mean that you can’t still celebrate. What better reason is there to bring everyone in your house together for a night of family fun? These festive Mardi Gras cupcakes are a great way to celebrate safely at home and put a smile on everyone’s face.
Mardi Gras Vanilla Cupcake Ingredients and Prep
You will need quite a few tools and ingredients to make these fabulous cupcakes. Let’s start with what we need for the cake part. The tools and equipment you need to start with are:
- Glass mixing bowls
- Kitchen mixer
- Whisk
- Dough scoop or ice cream scoop – 1 large scoop gets the perfect amount of cupcake batter.
- Foil cupcake liners – These hold up much better compared to the paper liners!
- Cupcake pan or muffin tin
- Cooling rack
Now that you have your equipment set up and ready to go, here are the ingredients you need to make the cupcakes:
- All-purpose flour or cake flour.
- Butter
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Eggs
- Granulated sugar
- Brown sugar
- Vegetable oil
- Vanilla extract
- Buttermilk
Making and Baking the Cupcakes
You have your tools and ingredients ready so now let me go over how to make these treats. I am also going to let you in on some of my tips and tricks to make these the most delicious cupcakes you have ever baked.
- First, preheat the oven to 350° F and line a 12 cup muffin tin with the foil cupcake liners. In my cupcake recipes I like to use a lot of butter which the paper liners just soak up and it is not cute at all. Foil liners hold up much better and are way more festive for Mardi Gras.
- Second, grab a glass mixing bowl and in it combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with a whisk. Tip: In my recipes I list all-purpose flour because it is common in household kitchens. However, I prefer using cake flour in my own kitchen because it makes such a difference in the texture of cakes and cupcakes.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla extract using a kitchen mixer.
- Next, still using the kitchen mixer, mix about half of the wet ingredients and buttermilk into the dry ingredients. Add the remaining wet ingredients and mix everything together well.
- Use a large dough scoop to evenly distribute the batter into the lined muffin tin. Using a scoop in this step will save you a lot of prep time and clean-up.
- Bake cupcakes for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let cupcakes rest and cool completely on the cooling rack.
Tip: Once the cupcakes have properly cooled, I squirt some simple homemade cake syrup over the cakes to ensure that they turn out moist and extra flavorful.
More Cupcakes Recipes
Mardi Gras Buttercream Frosting Ingredients and Prep
While the cupcakes are baking, it is time to work on making the buttercream frosting. For this part of the recipe you will need these tools:
- Kitchen Mixer
- Piping bags with rubber ties
- Jumbo metal piping tips – I use the jumbo tips because they provide better shapes and swirls.
- Mardi Gras cupcake toppers
- Cupcake container
Got your tools and equipment ready? Here are the ingredients you need to make this fabulous frosting:
Food coloring: green, purple, yellow (for gold) – these are the traditional festive colors for Mardi Gras
Whipping Up the Festive Buttercream Frosting
I love pairing buttercream frosting with my cupcakes! It is so delicious and those two make a truly satisfying match. Here is my frosting process:
- Start by adding the butter to the bowl of a stand kitchen mixer and beat it for 5 minutes until it has doubled in volume.
- Gradually add the sugar- about ½ cup at a time- beating between each addition. Next, gradually add in the vanilla and milk. Beat on high for 3 minutes, until combined.
- Divide buttercream evenly into 2 or 3 bowls, depending on how many different colored frostings you want to make. Using a different color for each bowl, add a few drops of food coloring into buttercream and mix until you reach the desired color.
- With a spatula or large serving spoon, scoop buttercream into large piping bags.
- Use the round and french jumbo metal tips to frost the cupcakes with the buttercream frosting. Use the round tip for the base and the french for the top swirl.
- Decorate the finished cupcakes with Mardi Gras cupcake toppers.
Proper Cupcake Packaging
Hosting a party is not required to have a reason to share these delicious Mardi Gras cupcakes! These are easy to package up and make a wonderful gift idea. Just carefully set the cupcakes up in these paper cupcake boxes and they are ready to go. The boxes have cups to hold each cupcake in place and keep them from messing each other up. Plus they have a window for a nice cupcake display for your loved ones to see what you made for them. You just might be surprised how much your friends will adore your homemade gift and thoughtfulness.
This flavorful matchup of vanilla cupcakes and rich buttercream frosting will be like a Mardi Gras party for your taste buds (or your whole family’s)! Your house will feel like a party with everyone devouring cupcakes, laughing, and having a good time together. These festive little treats will make it easy to celebrate Mardi Gras safely at home, no crowds required.
Mardi Gras cupcakes
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ Cup Butter Room Temperature
- ¾ Cup Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 2 Eggs
- 1 ½ Cups All-purpose flour
- 1 Tsp Baking Powder
- ½ Tsp Salt
- 1 Tsp Sour Cream
- ½ Cup Milk
Buttercream Frosting
- 1 Cup Butter Room Temperature
- 3 Cups Powdered Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp Milk
- Food Coloring yellow and purple
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Whisk together the eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl.
- In another medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and pale with a stand mixer or by hand.
- Add the dry ingredients ⅓ at a time into the bowl, alternating with ⅓ of the milk, mixing between each addition, along with the sour cream.
- Mix the batter together until combined.
- Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Using a large batter scoop, scoop the cupcake batter into 12 cupcake liners.
- Bake cupcakes for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Pull out of the oven. Cool completely on a wire rack before icing.
Buttercream Frosting
- Add the butter to a mixing bowl, and beat it for 5 minutes or until it is light and doubled in size with a stand mixer or by hand.
- Add the vanilla, and gradually add the powdered sugar and milk, ½ cup at a time, beating well between each addition.
- Beat the mixture for another 8-10 minutes.
- Divide buttercream evenly into 2 or 3 bowls, depending on how many different colored frostings you want to make. Using a different color for each bowl, add a few drops of food coloring into buttercream and mix until you reach the desired color.
- Cut about 1 inch from the tip of the piping bag and insert metal tip.
- With a spatula or large serving spoon, scoop buttercream into large piping bags.
- Pipe frosting on top of the cupcakes with a circular motion. Decorate the finished cupcakes with Mardi Gras cupcake toppers.
Notes
- To thin out the icing, add in the milk slowly and gradually.
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