Melting Snowman Cupcakes

Tis the season to indulge and enjoy! I went to a Christmas party a few weeks back and boy was it a joy or what! The Tellier Christmas party is an event we look forward to for an entire year and it just gets bigger and better with every passing year. Although, I have joined the ritual a little late, but my husband has been attending the Tellier Xmas party for 7 years now.. and they've been hosting it for I don't even know how many years.. The Tellier Family hosts this event at their home in Jackson, New Jersey, which is a good 90-100 miles from our house. We make a trip down to Jersey, regardless.. Wouldn't miss the event of the year for anything..
This year, however, there was a winter weather advisory posted for the day of the party, and it was the first snowfall of the season, making us question our decision to drive.. now amongst, all this decision making, I had decided to take dessert to the party and had been scratching my head as to what would be a quick, easy to make and easy to transport dessert for the party.
Was debating between a Christmas Log Cake and Red Velvet Cupcakes. Of course, one would be traditional, but the other would be fun and easy to carry. So I decided to go with the latter. Luckily for us, the snow did not accumulate as much as we had expected, and most people had their snowmen melting pretty fast, and so my Melting Snowman cupcakes only seemed fitting for the occasion.

Cupcakes in general are really easy to make and super easily to decorate. For this particular party though, I made mini cupcakes since they would be great bite sized desserts with such a big crowd. Hope you enjoy this recipe and the simple decoration tips that I used to make them stand out..

Prep time: 2 hours  Cook time: 15 mins 

Servings: makes about 24 regular cupcakes or 60 mini cupcakes 

Ingredients: 

• 2 1/2 cup flour
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda 
• 1 tsp salt 
• 1 tsp cocoa powder 
• 1 cup buttermilk 
• 1 1/2 cup vegetable oil 
• 2 large eggs (at room temperature, if you forget to take them out of the refrigerator earlier, just dip them in hot water for 10 mins)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1 tsp white vinegar 
• Red food coloring 
• Cupcake liners 

For the frosting and decoration:

• 1 packet marshmallows (you can buy vegetarian/halal ones at any Indian grocery store) 
• 16 oz cream cheese (I prefer using the whipped kind)
• 2 sticks unsalted butter 
• 1 tsp vanilla extra 
• 4-5 cups of confectioners sugar (you can adjust based on your preference of sweetness and consistency) 
• Black, red and green coloring, or you can play with the colors you prefer (I usually prefer gel food coloring)
• Orange sprinkles for the nose. 

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line the cupcake pans with cupcake liners
2. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients. (except sugar)
3. In another larger bowl, beat together all the wet ingredients. Add sugar gradually to this mixture while still beating the mixture. Beat for about 2-3 mins.
4. Add the sifted dry ingredients to this mixture and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.
5. Fill each cupcake liner to about 2/3rd its size and bake in the oven for about 20-22 mins for regular cupcakes and 13-15 mins for mini cupcakes
6. Once done, test by inserting a toothpick in a couple of the cupcakes. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cupcakes are done. Otherwise, bake further in two minute intervals.
7. Let the cupcakes completely cool. In the meantime, I usually start working on the frosting.
8. In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the frosting ingredients, that is the cream cheese, butter (make sure they are both softened, and not straight out of the refrigerator), vanilla extract and powdered sugar. Make sure you add powdered sugar one cup at a time, and in smaller amounts once you're close to achieving your desired sweetness and consistency. 
9. Take out a couple of spoons of icing in 3 different bowls. Add black, red, and green (or whatever colors you choose) to each bowl and mix.
10. Your colored icings are now ready.

To Decorate:

1. First I started with decorating my marshmallows with black icing. And inserted an orange sprinkle for its nose
2. Once the cupcakes were cooled, I frosted them with the cream cheese frosting
3. Then I inserted a toothpick in the marshmallows and inserted them towards a corner of the cupcake to look like the head of the snowman
4. Next I used some more black icing to create the hands on each of the cupcakes
5. Once I had the hands, I used my red and green icing to make scarves, buttons, bow ties, hair bows.. basically just going crazy with your creativity.. 

I hope you enjoy this recipe and also have fun creating and devouring the cupcakes.. Happy holidays to all of you, from me and mine.. <3