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.

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.

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.

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.

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.