These adorable Polar Bear Cupcakes are a really fun and easy festive treat. A vanilla cupcake is topped with a white chocolate buttercream and a white chocolate shell before being decorated with marshmallows to create the polar bear face.
WHY YOU’LL LOVE THIS RECIPE
Adorable and fun family bake | We don’t often immediately think about Polar Bears at Christmas but it’s time we gave them a bit more consideration as a Christmas character as they are so adorable and cute.
Simple but effective design | The design for these cupcakes is so simple but the final look is really effective and is definitely going to capture everyones attention.
Delicious white chocolate flavours | It’s sweet just like these polar bears so white chocolate is the perfect flavour for this design. Paired with the vanilla cupcake gives this a lovely balance but you could choose any other flavour you like such as coconut or something citrusy like lemon, lime or orange.
HOW TO MAKE THESE POLAR BEAR CUPCAKES
Watch how to make these Polar Bear Cupcakes here
Make vanilla cupcakes | To start to make these cupcakes you will need to make a batch of vanilla cupcakes. You are welcome to add other flavours in if you wish, coconut in particular works really well, but sometimes a simple vanilla cupcake is all you need.
Make the white chocolate shell | For the chocolate shell you will need to a sphere silicone mould. These have been popular over the last year since Hot Chocolate Bombs went viral so you can find them readily available on Amazon and they’re not very expensive.
Creating the white chocolate shell is really easy. Simply melt down some white chocolate and pour enough into each cavity so that you can coat the entire insides with white chocolate. Allow the first coating to set in the fridge before repeating the process again and you should be left with a shell thick enough to peel out of the cavity.
Decorate the cupcake | Once you have the baked cupcakes you will need to top them with a little swirl of white chocolate buttercream before topping them with the white chocolate shell. If you wanted to you could hide some treats inside too which would be a fun surprise to who ever is eating it.
To decorate the Polar Bear face, take two marshmallows and cut them in half with a pair of scissors. Place two halves (sticky side down) either side of the shell to resemble the polar bear ears and then place one in the centre lower down to represent the bears snout/nose. Then to finish, add a chocolate chip or brown chocolate sweet for the nose and pipe on some melted dark chocolate for the eyes and mouth. If the chocolate shells are still cool from the fridge the piping chocolate should set quite quickly
TOOLS YOU WILL NEED
To make these super cute cupcakes here’s some key tools you will need.
Cupcake tin
Mixing bowls
Standing Mixer or Hand Whisk
Sphere Silicone Mould
Piping Bags
Shop these tools
OTHER CHRISTMAS CUPCAKES YOU SHOULD TRY
I would love it if you tagged me @mykitchendrawer on Instagram if you make these Polar Bear Cupcakes. It’s the biggest honour to see my recipes come to life in your kitchen and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to drop me a message or let’s chat in the comments. Happy baking!
Polar Bear Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the chocolate cupcakes
- 100 g plain flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 200 g golden caster sugar
- 80 ml vegetable oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 120 ml buttermilk or sour cream
For the White Chocolate Buttercream
- 250 g icing sugar
- 400 g butter softened
- 50 g white chocolate melted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
To decorate
- 200 g White Chocolate melted
- 12 marshmallows halved
- Chocolate piping pen
- 12 chocolate chips
Instructions
For the chocolate cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 170°C and line a 12 hole cupcake tray with cupcake cases
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt until well combined then leave to one side.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar with the eggs, vanilla and oil and mix until combined well.
- Add half the dry mixture into the wet mixture and fold it together. Add the buttermilk then add the remaining dry mixture and fold through again until just combined. Be careful not to over mix, you only want to mix until you can no longer see any flour bits.
- Spoon or pour the mixture to fill the cupcake cases half way. Be careful not to over fill the cases as this could cause them to rise too high and over flow.
- Give the cupcake tin a tap on the work surface to remove any big air bubbles then bake in the centre of the oven for 19-21 minutes until well risen and springy to touch. When baked leave the cupcakes to cool in the tins for a few minutes, the remove and leave them to cool on a wire rack.
For the white chocolate buttercream
- In a medium bowl, add the butter and beat it to soften a little
- Add the icing sugar gradually until it all comes together. Keep beating until its light and creamy then add the white chocolate and mix through. Add a splash of milk or hot boiled water if you think it feels too stiff and beat that through well.
To decorate
- Fit a piping bag with a open star piping nozzle and fill it with the white chocolate buttercream. Pipe small swirls on top of each cupcake then top with a white chocolate sphere.
- My Kitchen Tip: For an additional festive surprise fill hide some sweets or a small treat under the sphere for the recipient.
- For each cupcake, cut two marshmallows in half then use two halves for the ears and stick them sticky side down either side of the sphere. Follow this with another half for the polar bear snout.
- Finish the polar bear face off with some chocolate icing or melted dark chocolate for the eyes then stick on a chocolate button for the nose and pipe on the mouth.
- Leave in the fridge before serving to avoid the white chocolate melting.
