Name: Adorable Bear Cupcakes
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 65 min
Ingredients: One box chocolate cake mix; 3 Eggs; ½ cup Oil; 1 cup Water; 1 cup Butter; 4 cups Icing sugar; 1 tsp Vanilla; 2 tsp Heavy cream or milk; Brown food coloring; Yellow food coloring; Chocolate candy melts; Black royal icing

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With these detailed instructions and photos, even a beginner can make these cute bear cupcakes! I’ll show you step-by-step how to make them.

Bear cupcakes are ideal for so many amazing special occasions. For a baby shower with a ‘we can bear-ly wait themed cupcake, these are perfect. They’re also great for a ‘beary first birthday cupcake’ as well as for a birthday theme like ‘wild one’ or ‘two wild’. You can also use them for a teddy bear themed birthday or baby shower.

If you’re looking for more party inspiration, check out this article on a Bear-y First Birthday Party. You can also mix these bear cupcakes with this Tiger Cupcake recipe and this Lion Cupcake recipe and check out what they look like put together for some Wild One birthday cupcakes.

How to make Bear cupcakes

Bake cupcakes

To make bear cupcakes, I recommend using chocolate cake mix. You can use your favorite brand of cake mix or your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe.

Mix together 3 eggs, ½ a cup of vegetable oil and one cup of water with one box of chocolate cake mix (or your dry ingredients) in a bowl. Fill your cupcake baking tin with cupcake liners and then spoon the cake mix in until each liner is about ¾ full.

Bake your cupcakes for 16-20 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit, depending on your cake mix instructions and oven. Cook them until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Take your cupcakes out of the cupcake pan and allow them to completely cool on a wire rack to room temperature before you start decorating them. Cold cupcakes are much easier to decorate! Try popping your cupcakes in the fridge for 10 minutes before frosting them.

Make frosting

You can either use chocolate frosting and a small amount of vanilla frosting or just use vanilla frosting like I did and dye part of it brown.

Make your vanilla buttercream frosting with 1 cup of butter and about 4.5 cups of icing sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla and 2 tsp of cream or whole milk. Blend it in a large bowl with a hand mixer or stand mixer until it’s fully mixed and no sugar crystals remain.

Separate out two-thirds of your frosting into a separate bowl and add in 1 drop of brown food coloring at a time and blend it again to make sure the color is well mixed. It’s easier to start light and work darker, so take your time adding the colouring in.

Scoop out a small amount (2-3 tablespoons) of your white buttercream frosting into another separate small bowl and add half a drop of yellow food coloring and half a drop of brown food coloring; you’ll use this lighter shade for the bear snout later.

How to make bear cupcake ears

To make the ears of your bear cupcakes, use black or brown chocolate candy melts. They look sort of dusty and dull right out of the package, so I take a drop of vegetable oil on my fingers and gently rub them to make them shiny.

Frost cupcakes

First, use your yellow frosting to create an oval in the lower center of the cupcake. The smoother this area is, the more polished it will look as a finished product. You can use a large round tip and smooth it with a cake spatula.

Use wilton tip #233, or a different grass piping tip, to give your adorable teddy bear cupcakes a shaggy look. Fill your piping bag ½ full with brown icing. If your bag is too full it can be hard to get the right amount of pressure to use this piping tip correctly.

Start at the outer edge of your cupcake, working your way around the top of each cupcake to put layers of shaggy frosting on your bear cupcake. Squeeze, gently press into the cupcake, continue squeezing, then pull away gently to create the fur. Stop squeezing and pull away from the cupcake. The longer you pull away from the cupcake, the longer the brown frosting fur will be. Take breaks if your hands get sore during this step. Work your way slowly towards the middle.

Decorate your bear cupcake

Once your cupcake is covered in brown frosting fur, add the candy melts as ears for your cute little bears to the top of the cupcake. Next, it’s time to make the teddy bear faces.

For the bear’s eyes and nose, I used a squeeze bottle of black royal icing. Black gel icing or regular vanilla frosting dyed black would also work. Use a small tip and work slowly with your black icing.

You can use candy eyes but they give the cupcake a different look. The pupils in candy eyes are often quite small which give it a ‘googly’ look. Large black eyes look cuter in my opinion but offer less contrast against the color of the brown fur. You could also use mini marshmallow and add black pupils with a decorating bag of frosting like I did in these Cookie Monster Cupcakes.

Bear Cupcake Tips

If you can’t get your grass tip to work, take it off and poke through the holes with a toothpick to make sure they are clear.
If your piping bag is breaking or you can’t get enough pressure to make your grass tip work properly, your frosting might be too thick or too cold. Try letting it sit on your counter longer or it will warm with your hands as you work with it.
To thin out your frosting if it’s too thick, add a tablespoon of cream at a time. If you accidentally add too much liquid, just add more powdered sugar.
I used Wilton Food Coloring and although it did dye my hands, the color washed off easily after a soak in warm water. You can also use chocolate frosting instead of dying vanilla frosting brown.
If you want the ‘snout’ or ‘muzzle’ of your bear cupcakes to be raised, you can use vanilla wafers instead of light yellow icing in that spot.
If you don’t like chocolate cupcakes, you could use vanilla cake mix. After you pipe frosting all over the tops of the cupcakes, you won’t be able to see the color of the cupcake underneath.
You can store the bear cupcakes in an airtight container for a day or two before they start to get stale. Just make sure the royal icing is completely dry before you store them or the dye will start to run.

Bear Cupcakes – Ingredients and Materials

Ingredients
- One box chocolate cake mix
- Three eggs
- ½ cup oil
- One cup water
- 1 cup Butter
- 4 cups Icing sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 2 tsp Heavy cream or milk
- Brown food coloring
- Yellow food coloring
- Chocolate candy melts
- Black royal icing

Materials
- Bowls
- Spoons
- Piping bags
- Grass piping tip
- Round piping tip
- Parchment paper
- Cupcake pans
- Cupcake liners
- Electric hand mixer or stand mixer

Do you love these cute bear cupcakes?

Adorable bear cupcakes are so much fun to make and such a cute cupcake idea for all kinds of celebrations. The whole family is sure to love them and they look adorable on any dessert table. If you’re looking for another fun addition to your desserts, check out these apple nachos that are great for parties and for kids too! For another decadent cupcake recipe to try, check out these chocolate raspberry cupcakes.

Use these bear-themed cupcakes as Beary First Birthday Cupcakes, Teddy Bear Themed Birthday Cupcakes, or We Can Bearly Wait Baby Shower Cupcakes. You can even pair them with other animal themed cupcakes for a Wild One or Two Wild themed birthday party.