King Cake Cupcakes
Mardi Gras is celebrated around the world and each country has its own tradition.
Here in the United States (particularly in the Gulf Coast) there is the tradition of the king cake. The king cake is a braided cake or sweet bread that is covered in icing and colorful sprinkles and beads.
The cake is served and whoever gets the piece with the small trinket has to host the Mardi Gras celebration or purchase next year’s king cake. The most common of these trinkets that is baked into the cake is a small baby to represent baby Jesus.
We created our own version of the king cake. This individual treat is stuffed with vanilla cream filling and, in true New Orleans-style, a plastic trinket. Our king cakes call for a plastic trinket to be inserted into each cupcake so that everyone has good luck!
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king cake cupcakes recipe
Ingredients
cake
- 1 box cake mix, any flavor
frosting
- 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cups milk
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
vanilla cream filling
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 1/2 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
decorations
- cupcake wrappers, gold
- good luck mini babies, trinkets for insertion into cupcakes
- dragees, (aka edible gold cake ballz)
- colored sugar, (green, yellow and purple)
- Mardi Gras beads, and other decorations
Instructions
- Follow cake mix instructions to bake 24 cupcakes in gold wrappers and cool completely.
- Mix frosting ingredients, scraping down sides often and beat until smooth.
- Mix filling ingredients until stiff peaks form and set aside.
- Poke holes in cupcakes and insert good luck mini babies. Fill cupcakes with vanilla cream filling using piping bag then frost cupcakes then immediately sprinkle with stripes of colored sugar and dragees. Decorate with Mardi Gras beads and other decorations.