Mona’s minty mini cakes!

My youngest sister, Mona is in town and I am so excited to be spending time with her. She arrived in time for the Seahawks game and to bake these delicious cupcakes with me! I decided to dedicate these to her, for her help in making them 🙂

And her name conveniently starts with an ‘m’. 😛

These cupcakes are SO good. The peppermint extract elevates the white cake and leaves a subtle minty flavor in your mouth. The crushed candy canes that are folded into the cupcake leave little red polka dots throughout the cake-what a surprise!

Here is my recipe:

Makes 36 mini cupcakes

Prep: 25 minutes     Bake: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon table salt

3 large eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), at room temperature

2 teaspoons peppermint extract

1/4 cup crushed candy canes

*I forgot to photograph the milk! Sorry

Butter Cream:

1/2 cup butter, unsalted at room temperature

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

5 cups powdered sugar

1-2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/2 cup crushed candy canes or other sprinkles or jimmies

red food coloring

Icing bag

Wilton 1M tip

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line mini cupcake pan with cupcake liners. I used the Wilton brand candy cane liners.

2. Using the paddle attachment of your stand mixer, cream together butter, eggs, sugar and extract. Add in milk.

3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Mix in to wet ingredients. As always, DO NOT OVERMIX.

4. Using a spatula, fold in the crushed candy canes. Using a small ice cream scoop, pour about 1 1/4 tablespoon batter into each cupcake cup.

5. Bake for 13-15 minutes until golden brown.

6. While cupcakes are baking, make the butter cream. Using the whisk attachment, cream together butter and shortening. On low speed, slowly add in powdered sugar. Add in milk, 1 tablespoon at a time.

*you may only need 1 tablespoon. Turn off your mixer and check the consistency of your butter cream.

The next steps are completely optional. I love the swirled butter cream look! It looks just like a candy cane! 😀

7. Remove half of the butter cream from the bowl. Add a few drops of the red food coloring and mix well. You want half the butter cream to be white and the other half to be red.

8. Using a butter knife, carefully place white butter cream into the pipping bag. You want the butter cream to cover only 1/2 of the bag like pictured below:

  9.   Next add in the red butter cream.

10. Ice your cupcakes and top with the crushed candy canes.

11. Enjoy 🙂