Raccoon Cupcakes: Easy Decorating Tutorial + Video

Kids will love these adorable raccoon cupcakes. This easy decorating tutorial with a video shows step-by-step how to use frosting to create a fun dessert.

Looking for a cute dessert idea that your kids will love? Try making these adorable Raccoon Cupcakes. Today we’re sharing an easy step-by-step tutorial showing how to use frosting to create this fun treat – we even included a video!

Every year in the fall our school hosts a family fun festival. Each grade level has to bring something to support and help the festival. Our first year it was super easy. We just had to bring a 12-pack of pop. This year though we had to bring a dozen cupcakes that would be used as prizes for a “cupcake walk”.

A cupcake walk is just like a cake walk, if you’re familiar with how those work. Basically kids walk around in a large circle stepping on squares of paper or something on the floor while music plays. Each paper has a number on it. When the music stops, every kid scurries to quickly get on one of the numbered squares. Then an adult reaches into a hat or spins a wheel to pick a number. Whatever kid is standing on that number wins a half dozen cupcakes.

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The instructions from school said we could either buy cupcakes or they would provide plastic containers to hold cupcakes if we wanted to make them ourselves. I’m always up for a challenge and love making fun food for kids like the birthday cakes I’ve made for my boys, crazy face tacos, stuff like that. The only question was what kind of cupcakes would make a great prize that a kid would actually WANT to win?

I thought about simple ones with a thick layer of frosting and colorful sprinkles. But then I came across a video on Facebook from Simple as That for making the cutest fox cupcakes. They were so cute and looked really easy to make. After watching this video I was totally inspired to come up with a similar animal idea for our cupcake walk prize!

I was talking about it with my talented baker friend, Meaghan at Cook. Craft. Love. She suggested I ought to make Raccoon Cupcakes. I thought that was a brilliant idea! The boys and I have always loved The Kissing Hand and A Pocket Full of Kisses by Audrey Penn about a mother raccoon and her sons. Raccoons have a similar shaped face to a fox, so I thought a raccoon face would look just as adorable on a frosted cupcake.

Raccoon Cupcakes are really simple to make especially if you use a boxed cake mix, canned frosting and chocolate coated candy like I did. I even made a little video tutorial so I could show you step-by-step just how easy it is to make your own Raccoon Cupcakes.

How to Decorate Raccoon Cupcakes

Raccoon cupcakes are really easy to decorate with frosting, chocolate candy and a few simple tools.

What You Need:

• Cake mix (with oil, water, eggs or anything else it calls for on the box)
• Cupcake liners
• Cupcake/muffin pan
• Chocolate frosting
• White frosting
• Small mixing bowl
• Knife or metal spatula
• Resealable plastic bag or cake decorating bag
• Scissors
• Small star decorating tip
• Small round chocolate candies
• Large round chocolate candies
• Bamboo skewers
• Cupcake containers

Video Tutorial:

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Prepare Cupcakes

Mix and bake the cupcakes in the muffin pan according to the directions on the cake mix. I used a chocolate cake mix, because I think “brown” for raccoons. Any flavor cake mix would work for Raccoon Cupcakes though. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.

2. Frost the Raccoon Cupcakes with a Base Layer

In a small mixing bowl, combine a little chocolate frosting and white frosting to create a light brown color. I used about 50/50 of each color, maybe a little more of the chocolate frosting. You’ll use this light brown frosting to spread a base layer on each of the chocolate cupcakes. Later you’ll also use it for the ears so I’d suggest using at least half of each container of frosting. When you frost the cupcakes, use a circular motion and always move your knife or metal frosting spatula in the same direction. This helps to minimize the number of crumbs you pick up with your knife.

3. Create the Face

Fill a resealable storage bag or a cake decorating bag with white frosting. Cut the tip off one of the corners on the bottom of the bag with a pair of scissors. Gently squeeze the bag to ice a small face on the Raccoon Cupcakes, like you see in the photo below. The shape of the white part looks like a half heart to me. You may want to smooth the white frosting with a knife.

4. Make the Raccoon’s Mask

Next put a small tip in the bottom of a cake decorating bag and fill it with chocolate frosting. Use the chocolate frosting you still have in the store container, NOT the light brown you mixed in the first step. Raccoons always look like masked bandits, so you’ll use this chocolate frosting to create a mask. Again, you may want to use a knife to smooth the chocolate frosting after you pipe it on with the cake decorating bag.

5. Add a Nose and Two Eyes

Now put a big round chocolate candy at the base of the two white half heart shapes to create a nose for the Raccoon Cupcakes. Any chocolate coated candy will work, but I used Hershey’s Drops for these. I just made sure the Hershey name/branding was pointed down so it didn’t show on the Raccoon Cupcakes. Likewise I used two chocolate covered Mini M&Ms for the eyes. I tried chocolate chips for the eyes too which you might notice in some of the pictures. They worked just fine, but I liked the Mini M&Ms better.

At this point in the process the Raccoon Cupcakes could almost pass as sloths, don’t you think? Sloth Cupcakes would have made a really fun cupcake walk prize too since the movie, Zootopia is such a big hit with kids right now.

6. Add Ears with a Decorating Tip

Put a small star decorating tip in the bottom of a cake decorating bag. Fill the bag with the leftover light brown frosting you used for the base layer on the Raccoon Cupcakes. Gently squeeze the cake decorating bag to pipe ears onto the top of the raccoon’s head. I tried to make mine triangular and sort of built them up like you would a soft serve ice cream cone.

7. Last, Add Whiskers

To make whiskers for the Raccoon Cupcakes, take the chocolate frosting you still have in the decorating bag from making the raccoon’s mask. Use it to put a dot of chocolate frosting on each of the raccoon’s cheeks. Then use a wood bamboo skewer to fan out the chocolate frosting like wispy whiskers.

8. Box Up the Cupcakes and Enjoy! 

Once you’re done frosting the remaining Raccoon Cupcakes, box them up in plastic containers if you’re going to use them for a cupcake walk prize. We were all giddy when we arrived at the family fun festival and saw a little girl proudly walking around with a 6-pack of our Raccoon Cupcakes. She was grinning from ear-to-ear showing her friends the big “prize” she won.

While we used these Raccoon Cupcakes as a prize for a school fair, they would also make a fun birthday treat for your kid’s classmates at school. You could also host a woodland themed birthday party and use these Raccoon Cupcakes instead of a cake. However you choose to share these Raccoon Cupcakes, I hope your kids enjoy them as much as mine did.

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While you’re here, be sure to check out other fun food ideas on Ideas for the Home by Kenarry® –

• Tropical Turtle Beach Jello Cups
• Easter Bunny Recipes: 12 Rabbit Shaped Dessert Ideas
• Monster Cupcakes: Easy Idea for Birthday or Halloween
  

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