Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Cupcakes

by Jen on December 3, 2021

The holiday season is officially here and I am so excited to share these Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer cupcakes with you.

The first thing that I have to tell you that while these cupcakes are adorable and so festive, they are not difficult to make. I promise! I am not the crafty type at all and had no problem baking and assembling these cupcakes to look exactly like the original recipe. The cupcakes and frosting are from a box/can and the reindeer decorations are easy to do!

The second thing I have to share is that this is a fun baking project to do with kids! As I’ve shared recently, Finn is super into helping me in the kitchen and especially loves any baking projects that involve chocolate. He stayed engaged and involved through the whole process of making these reindeer cupcakes and had a great time. He’s three and a half if you don’t regularly follow my blog and are just here for the recipe. I think older kids could have a lot of fun with this recipe too and do more of the steps on their own.

I’m going to share the recipe as more of method/tutorial in this post. I’ll do a recipe card below but the photos will help you a lot!

RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS

Here’s what you need to make these cupcakes happen:

Chocolate cake mix for the cupcakes
Canned chocolate frosting to ice the cupcakes plus extra to affix the nose and eyes to the reindeer
Frosting piping bag and tip for a neater and cleaner frosting application
Miniature pretzels for the antlers
Red hots for the red nose
Candy eyes for the eyes (you can find these online or at a craft store like Michael’s)
Fun-sized chocolate candy bars for the reindeer body (I used Snickers leftover from Halloween candy)
A toothpick, chopstick or wooden skewer to affix the nose and eyes
Holiday colored/themed sprinkles
Holiday-themed cupcake liners (I used red and green)

I purchased all of the ingredients for these cupcakes from my local Food Lion (with the exception of the candy eyes). I made these cupcakes as part of an Instagram collaboration with Food Lion and they were too fun and cute not to share on my blog as well!

HOW TO MAKE RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER CUPCAKES

STEP ONE

Bake the cupcakes according to instructions on boxed cake mix. Each box should make about 24 cupcakes but I opted to only bake 12 because I just didn’t need 24 cupcakes.

STEP TWO

Let the cupcakes cool completely and then frost using a pastry bag with a tip attached to pipe frosting onto cupcakes. Pastry bag sets are affordable and so awesome for making your cupcakes look prettier and more professional. They’re easy to use!

STEP THREE

Cut the pretzels to make the antlers. This was probably the hardest part of the whole process for me, haha. I used a sharp knife to score/create a groove down the center of each pretzel and then gently cut them in half. Once I did that, I had to further trim the pretzel into an antler shape.

STEP FOUR

Get all of your reindeer decorations set out on a cutting board so that you’re ready to assemble. You need the pretzel antlers, red hots, candy eyes, chocolate candy bars, a little bit of frosting and a toothpick/chopstick/etc.

STEP FIVE

Using the tip of the toothpick/chopstick/skewer, dip it into the frosting and then spread on back of the candy eyes. Affix eyes to the candy bars. The frosting will serve as the glue to keep them on. Do the same thing with the red noses.

STEP SIX

Carefully place each reindeer face onto the frosted cupcakes. You want to place them in the bottom two-thirds of the cupcake, leaving some frosting showing above the top of the candy bars. This is where your antlers will go.

STEP SEVEN

Add the pretzel antlers right at the top of the chocolate candy.

STEP EIGHT

Decorate with sprinkles.

REINDEER CUPCAKE TIPS AND TRICKS

I recommend storing these cupcakes in the fridge. The icing will be stiffer so that the reindeer face doesn’t start to slide off the cupcake. You can always pull them out before serving and bring to room temperature.
I think you could make these gluten-free by using gluten-free baking mix, gluten-free pretzels and making sure your candy bar was gluten-free.
Use fun holiday shapes for the sprinkles like stars, trees, candy canes, etc. You can use a toothpick to help you position them.
I had to kind of smooth the surface of my Snickers bars with a knife to make sure the eyes and nose would stick well. I think you have to do this with some candy bars more than others.
Pull a couple of cupcakes out and let your kid go crazy decorating on their own.

RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER CUPCAKE RECIPE