Instead of buying a store-bought dessert this year, bake these homemade cupcakes that are both a tasty treat and festive decoration for your holiday celebrations. Before getting started, you'll want to make sure you have some light and dark green sanding sugars, pretzels, yellow nonpareils, and green sour-candy straps on hand.
To make these St. Paddy's Day cupcakes, you'll want to first use this classic vanilla cupcake recipe to prepare the cupcake batter. Then, fill each hole of a lined mini muffin pan with 1½ tablespoons cupcake batter, and place a small ball of foil on the side of each liner to create an indent. Place 2 small rectangles of foil (3 sheets thick) on opposite sides of the liners to create small hearts, then bake as directed and let cool.
Next, you'll want to prepare the topping by using this delicious vanilla buttercream frosting recipe. Note: The buttercream can be refrigerated in an airtight container or resealable bag for up to one week.
After the frosting is made, you can create the clover cupcakes by frosting indented mini cupcakes with 1 teaspoon buttercream and dip in green sanding sugar (dark, light or a combination). Then, arrange 3 or 4 cupcakes, pointed sides touching, to create the clovers; and use a ½-in. piece of pretzel for each stem. Add some dandelion cupcakes to the arrangement as well by frosting regular mini cupcakes with 1 tsp buttercream and dip in yellow nonpareils. Cut zigzags from sour candy straps and use buttercream to attach them to the outside of each liner for a neat finishing touch. The end result: a spirited Shamrock display that looks *almost* too beautiful to eat!
