Reindeer Brownie Cupcakes in a Hurry
These are perfect for a school class Christmas party or a preschool treat. Unfortunately, right now there aren’t a lot of Christmas festivities. But if you are looking for a fast and fun Christmas treat for your kids at home, it doesn’t get much easier than these reindeer brownie cupcakes. And the hard chocolate shell on the top tastes amazing with the brownies!
You can also let your kids decorate their own and see what kinds of reindeer personalities they come up with. It is amazing how much you can change a face by how you position the eyes and nose.
Reindeer Brownie Cupcakes Recipe
Ingredients
- Brownie mix with required ingredients
- Bag of chocolate chips or cocoa candy melts
- Red candies (Skittles, M&M’s, or Red Hots)
- Miniature candy canes
- Candy eyes
- Black or brown cupcake liners
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Prep muffin tins with cupcake liners. How many cupcakes you can make will depend on the box recipe you choose to use. A 20 oz. box of brownie mix will make about 15.
- Prepare the brownies according to the box instructions. If you like it chocolatey, add a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter.
- Spoon 1/4 cup of batter into each cupcake liner and cook in the oven for 20 minutes. Let the brownies cool.
- Melt two cups of chocolate chips or candy melts in the microwave by cooking for 30 seconds in a bowl, stirring, cooking for 30 more seconds, stirring – repeat until the chocolate is smooth.
- Spread the melted chocolate thinly on top of the cupcakes. Add the candy eyes and nose before the chocolate hardens. While the chocolate is still soft, add the candy canes as the antlers.
- Let the chocolate topping firm before serving. Especially yummy when served with ice cream!
A funny little story about these reindeer brownie cupcakes. During the pandemic, our little pod has included our cousins. We are so lucky to have cousins who live close who are similar ages to my kids.
Last weekend, my mother-in-law decided to have a little Christmas party for them and asked me to prepare a dessert. I am super busy with balancing virtual school, work, and all the home stuff, so I didn’t want to do anything to time intensive. I am trying to simplify, so I was only going to do a pan of brownies. But it is so boring!
So that morning, I got an idea. I didn’t want to mess with frosting, but I could melt chocolate chips in minutes. I had a bunch of candy canes and some candy eyes in the pantry. Candy eyes are considered a staple pantry item over here. You can make any food cooler with candy eyes. But what was I going to do for the nose? I didn’t want to make a run to the store.
Then I remembered the stash of Skittles I had in my food storage! Food storage to the rescue! I popped open one of the mini bags and separated out just enough red Skittles for each of the cousins. I was able to whip these reindeer brownies up in under 15 minutes! And the hardened chocolate was way yummier than frosting! So the moral of the story is that food storage is not only good for big crises, but for reindeer brownie crises too.
Or if you don’t feel like cooking at all, try my Mint Grinch Italian Sodas!
