Last updated on May 5th, 2024 at 03:03 pm
This mini cupcake recipe is SO easy to whip up for any occasion! I made them for a quick celebration for my toddler, since they are so simple and the perfect size for tiny people. You can easily whip these up with about an hour total if you also let your cupcakes chill in the fridge for a bit while you whip up your frosting. And voila! A simple, elegant and homemade dessert. The mini cupcakes shown in this post are mini confetti cupcakes. However, keep reading and I’ll explain some other varieties you can make too!
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How to Make This Mini Cupcakes Recipe
Mini Confetti Cupcakes Ingredients
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles
Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
4 oz cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon milk (Optional, for texture)
More rainbow sprinkles (For decoration)
Mini Cupcakes Instructions:
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a mini cupcake pans with paper liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg beating well. Add the vanilla extract.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, alternating with the milk. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.
- Gently fold in the rainbow sprinkles until evenly distributed in the batter.
- Spoon 1 tablespoon batter into the prepared mini cupcake liners, filling each about 2/3 full.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting them. If you’re in a hurry (Like I always am!), I would let them chill at room temperature until the pan is at least cool enough for you to touch, then stick the pan in the fridge or freezer while you whip up the frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting Instructions:
- In a large bowl, beat together the softened cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.
- Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Stir in the vanilla extract and beat the frosting until smooth and fluffy. If you find the frosting too think, add in a little bit of milk.
Assembling Mini Cupcakes
Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, frost them with the cream cheese frosting using a piping bag with a star tip. I like the Wilton 1M tip for cupcakes.
Optionally, top each cupcake with additional rainbow sprinkles for decoration.
Serve and enjoy your delicious mini confetti cupcakes!
Here’s a Video on How to Make These Easy Mini Cupcakes:
Pro Tips for Successful Mini Cupcakes:
1. Let your butter and cream cheese come to room temperature before using them. Especially with such small amounts for these mini cupcakes, it can be a pain to have your ice cold dairy ingredients making everything else chunky. If you take out your butter and cream cheese an hour or so before you start baking, you should be good.
2. Use a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon to measure your batter. This way, all of your cupcakes will be the same size. You really don’t need a lot of cupcake batter for mini cupcakes, so 1 tablespoon of batter per cupcake is perfect.
3. Add sprinkles last for decorating/frosting. If you add the sprinkles to your frosting, they will clog up your piping tip. I would recommend you pipe frosting on a mini cupcake, and then immediately add some sprinkles before the frosting has a chance to harden. If you really want to add the sprinkles to your frosting, you can always just use a knife to spread on some frosting, too!
4. Use real rainbow sprinkles instead of nonpareils. I know, I was also checking out those nonpareils when I was buying ingredients for this recipe! The regular rainbow sprinkles just look so big for mini cupcakes. However, nonpareils do not have the same coloring as regular sprinkles. Regular sprinkles are more waxy, and that wax protects the color of the sprinkles when baking. Nonpareils will bleed their color all over your cupcake batter, whereas regular sprinkles will mostly keep their color and give you those adorable little specks of color in your cupcakes.
Mini Cupcakes Recipe FAQs:
Can I make these a different flavor? Absolutely! There are SO many possibilities for this. You could make these plain vanilla cupcakes and leave the sprinkles out, and then add some raspberry buttercream frosting instead. You could use ½ cup of flour and ¼ cup of cocoa powder to make chocolate cupcakes. For your chocolate cupcakes you could always use the same frosting here, or you could try some Oreo frosting! There are so, so many things you can make with this basic cupcake recipe with only a few alterations.
Can I make these vegan? Yes you can! For vegan cupcakes, you would want to replace the egg with ¼ cup of applesauce, replace the butter with ¼ cup vegetable shortening and then use your preferred vegan milk in place of the milk. I like coconut milk from a can best, but really anything would work! For the frosting, you could replace the cream cheese with vegan cream cheese and butter with vegetable shortening again. I, personally, have not found a vegan cream cheese that I like in my desserts. If you also don’t like vegan cream cheese, you can check out this vegan vanilla frosting I made here.
Can I really make these in under an hour? Yes! I made them and typed up half of this post while my son took a one-hour nap. Of course, you really should take your butter and cream cheese out of the fridge at least an hour ahead of time, so don’t count that towards your hour! However, you can easily whip up the batter, bake these, chill them and frost them in an hour. The key is, once your cupcakes are out of the oven and the pan is cool enough to touch, stick the pan in the fridge or freezer to chill. Then, whip up your frosting while your cupcakes chill in the fridge even more and frost them right away. Luckily, the frosting really only takes like 5 minutes to put on such tiny cupcakes.
If you liked this easy mini cupcakes recipe, check out:
Pecan Pie Cupcakes
Pancake Cupcakes with Browned Butter Maple Frosting
Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting
Banana Pudding Cupcakes
Mini Cupcakes - With Rainbow Sprinkles
Ingredients
Mini Cupcakes with Rainbow Sprinkles
- 3/4 cup flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup butter softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg 1/3
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles
- 1 tsp vanilla
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 oz cream cheese softened
- 1/4 cup butter softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 Tbsp milk optional, for texture
- extra rainbow sprinkles optional, for decoration
Instructions
Mini Cupcake Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a mini cupcake pan with paper liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg beating well. Add the vanilla extract.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, alternating with the milk. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.
- Gently fold in the rainbow sprinkles until evenly distributed in the batter.
- Spoon 1 tablespoon batter into the prepared mini cupcake liners, filling each about 2/3 full.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting them. To speed up the chilling process, you can put them in the fridge or freezer for a bit once the pan is cool enough to touch.
Frosting and Assembly Instructions
- In a large bowl, beat together the softened cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.
- Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Stir in the vanilla extract and beat the frosting until smooth and fluffy.
- If you find your frosting is too thick, add in a little milk (start with a teaspoon or so)
- Put your frosting in a piping bag with a tip. Pipe a small swirl of frosting on top of each mini cupcake and sprinkle rainbow sprinkles on top before the frosting sets.
