These delicious Grinch cupcakes start with a peppermint cupcake base and then get topped with Grinch inspired Santa hats with a peppermint buttercream!
After those are combined, add your milk and mix again.
1 cup milk
Finally, add the flour mixture and stir that in by hand.
Use a cupcake scoop to fill each of your cupcake tins 1/2 to 3/4 full with the batter, continuing until you’ve filled all 24 cupcake liners.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick poked in the center of your largest cupcake comes out clean.
Frosting
Whip the softened butter in a stand mixer until the butter is smooth and fluffy.
6 sticks butter
With the mixer on low, gradually add in the powdered sugar, allowing it to mix in as you go. Keep mixing until the frosting is smooth.
2 lbs powdered sugar
Add your peppermint and vanilla extract and mix again.
1 TBS peppermint extract, 1/2 TBS vanilla extract
Finally, add the 4TBS of milk. If it’s still too stiff to pipe, you can add a little more and mix again. Keep adding a bit more until you get a good piping consistency.
4-6 TBS milk
Divide the frosting into three cups – about 1/5 of the frosting should go in a piping bag with a small star tip of some sort and be left white. Then split the remaining frosting and divide it into two bowls.Add green food coloring to one bowl and stir to make your green frosting. Then add the green frosting to a piping bag with either a round tip or no tip.Add red food coloring to the other bowl and stir it in to make your red frosting. Once you get the red color you’d like, add it to a piping bag as well. You’ll want either a round tip or no tip for this as well.
neon green food coloring, red food coloing
Once cupcakes are completely cooled, pipe two layers of green frosting on the top of each cupcake. Then pipe two smaller layers of red frosting on top of the green cupcake, sticking to the center of the cupcake to give it a little Santa hat look.
Finish off the cupcakes by piping a star hat design with the white frosting to create the lining and the top of the hat.
Notes
Store covered in an airtight container like this cupcake holder for up to five days before trashing.Freeze the cupcakes before frosting in a freezer safe container that’s airtight. Cupcakes will freeze for up to three months. Just allow cupcakes to come to room temperature before frosting and serving.Bake your cupcakes in either two ovens or one after another for the most even baking. If you are out of time and have to bake them both at once, start one on the top rack and one of the lower rack and switch halfway through the baking time. They may still take a bit longer than normal with two tins in the oven, but the switching should help.Ingredient Notes
Vanilla – I personally used vanilla bean paste in the cupcakes and vanilla extract in the frosting but you could use vanilla extract for both. Just substitute the same amount of the vanilla extract instead.
Milk – I used milk for my cupcakes but if you want to add a little more flavor you can also use peppermint coffee creamer (no actual coffee of course, just the creamer).
Food coloring – I used the green from this McCormick Neon food coloring to get a good Grinch green color and just a regular red for the red frosting.
Butter – you’ll want to use unsalted butter in this recipe that’s soft. If you don’t have unsalted, I recommend reducing the amount of added salt to just 1/4 tsp instead of 1/2 tsp.
Peppermint extract – I like adding this to give these Grinch cupcakes a holiday flavor but you can omit if you’d prefer no peppermint flavor (like my oldest).