Candy Cane Christmas Cupcakes

I LOVE candy canes during this time of year & I wanted to make some festive cupcakes to bring to a Relief Society progressive dinner, so when I came upon these lovelies at bakingbites.com I knew I just had to try them out!!

The cupcakes start with vanilla/white cake that is flavored with peppermint extract and layered into the cupcake pan in such a way as to create red and white stripes. I will admit I used a boxed cake (and pre-made frosting) which makes my recipe not at all from scratch but very quick and easy, no hassle kind of stuff ya know...but the recipe below does include the one from scratch if you are so ambitious to do so :)

The candy cane layering technique makes these cupcakes extra special and fun. First the batter is divided and food coloring is added to one part, then alternating spoonfuls of batter are put into the cup and baked. The heat of the oven does the rest of the work for you and you end up with a beautiful candy cane-like cupcake!

These cupcakes are very moist and keep very well. The peppermint flavor is not aggressive, although it is distinct, and it really complements the look of the cake. If you want to increase the peppermint and get and even more candy cane-like flavor, feel free to do, but I prefer these to be a little bit understated. The cupcakes aren’t very sweet on their own and, though they look really interesting plain, I think they do need frosting to make them into something special.

I opted for green frosting to make these especially Christmasy, but there is no need to color it if you prefer the look of white frosting or simply don’t want to fuss with more food coloring. I used pre-made frosting but you could make a lovely cream cheese frosting that would be amazing. I didn’t add any mint to the frosting so that there would be a nice balance between it and the cake. Normally, I wouldn’t be that excited by green frosting, but on these particular cupcakes I think it looks amazing. I suppose I could had gone a little greener but whatever shade of color you choose, these are sure to be showstoppers at any holiday party!

Candy Cane Christmas Cupcakes

2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 tsp peppermint extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red food coloring

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix together eggs and sugar until mixture is light and creamy and the sugar has mostly been dissolved. Stir in milk, vegetable oil, vanilla and peppermint extracts.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Pour into wet ingredients and whisk just until batter is smooth.

Measure out one cup of batter and place it back in the medium bowl. Add red food coloring to this bowl and whisk to incorporate.

Put a spoonful (approx 2-3 tsp) of the white batter into the center each cupcake paper and let it spread slightly on its own. Put a spoonful of red batter in the center of the white. It will push out the other batter and, as it sits for a moment, will also spread itself. Alternating spoonfuls of the two batters and trying to keep the amounts as even as possible (after the first layer, I used smaller amounts of red and white with each spoonful), repeat the technique until all the batter has been used up.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center of each cupcake comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

& I just filled a zip-block bag with the icing and cut a corner off to pipe them onto the cupcakes! Super easy & cute! Oh and if you are going to go with pre-made, store bought frosting go with the whipped sort (like this one found HERE)...it is a lot more fluffy, light and delicious! Enjoy!