# Birthday Cupcakes
> Bake a box-mix batch of vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with your child, make patterns with the two colors while they cool, then let the little artist frost and sprinkle them. Keeping it simple makes all the difference when baking with kids.
- URL: https://www.funlittles.com/birthday-cupcakes/
- Ages: 3–7 yrs · Difficulty: easy · Mess: medium
- Time: prep 10 min, activity 1 hr
- Works for: one-on-one, small group · one batch serves about 1 kids
- Skills: patterns, fine-motor, kitchen-skills
- Cautions: wheat-gluten, egg, dairy, food-dye

## Materials (one batch)
- 1 piece Box cake mix (vanilla)
- Ingredients listed on the cake mix box (household)
- 1 piece Store-bought vanilla frosting
- Unsweetened cocoa powder
- Sprinkles (optional)
- 24 piece Cupcake liners
- Muffin/cupcake pans (household)
- 4 piece Mixing bowls (household)
- 1 piece Spatula or butter knife for frosting (household)
- 1 piece Wire cooling rack (household)
- 1 piece Tray or platter for decorating (optional) (household)

## Substitutions
- Instead of cake mix: Your favorite from-scratch cupcake batter ("If a box mix is a big no-no for you, go for that white flour.")

## Safety
- Adult handles the oven and hot pans.
- Let the cupcakes cool completely before kids handle or frost them.
- Don't let kids taste raw batter: it contains raw flour and usually raw egg.
- Check the cake mix, frosting and sprinkle labels for allergens before baking for or with other children.
- Wash hands before baking and decorating.

## Before you start
- Read the cake mix box and have its listed ingredients ready.
- Line the cupcake pans with liners and preheat the oven as the box directs.

## Steps
1. Make the cupcake batter following the directions on the box.
2. Split the batter into 2 bowls. Keep one plain vanilla and make the other chocolate ("Make them brown!").
3. Spoon the batter into the lined pans to make 24 cupcakes.
4. Adult: bake according to the package directions, then set the cupcakes on a rack to cool.
5. While they cool, arrange the vanilla and chocolate cupcakes into patterns.
6. Split the frosting into 2 bowls and stir cocoa powder into one to make chocolate frosting.
7. Frost each cooled cupcake with a spatula.
8. Shake on sprinkles and let the artist do her job.
9. Serve, with a tight hug and a "Happy Birthday!"

## Tips
- Sometimes keeping it simple makes all the difference in the world when baking with kids. A box mix and store-bought frosting worked great for us.
- Deal or Dud: our $1 syringe-style decorating tool was a total dud. It never locked, the frosting leaked and the push mechanism failed, so we stuck to our good old spatula.
- As hard as it is to wait for the cooling, use that time to play with patterns using the two colors. Make anytime into learning time!

## The original post by TurkeyMom (2012)

Let me start off by wishing all mommies who share a September birthday with me “**A Very Happy Birthday !** “ This post is to archive the happy time I had with my daughter while she was baking me some birthday cupcakes. I need a place to permanently store the process, my thoughts on the said day and of course the beautiful cupcake pictures. This post is clearly not a tutorial for baking cupcakes. To add to our “Kitchen Tales” I decided to write about my special birthday cupcakes that my lovely 4 yr old made for me ! We used a box cake mix, store-bought frosting and Hershey’s cocoa powder. What I discovered , and I’m sure many of you would agree too, sometimes keeping it simple, makes all the difference in the world when baking with kids. Of course if a box mix is a big no-no for you, go for that white flour.  With this post, I would also like to add a “Deal or Dud” segment into my kitchen tales for the stuff I buy , that I think, is going to make things easier on me . This time I saw a cake decorating tool. It looks like a syringe and has interchangeable nozzles with different shapes for decoration. It was a dollar, not a big dent on my budget, so I bought it . I thought that it’s a perfect tool for my 4 yr old because it looks pretty easy to handle – hmm may be not. 

### Verdict:

It was a total “Dud” because the syringe never locked and the frosting always leaked and the push mechanism failed miserably. So as goes the saying old is gold – we stuck to our good old spatula to frost our delicious bundles.

**Here is what we did**

### Step 1

We followed the package directions to make cupcakes and split our batter into 2 bowls. One batter was going to be plain vanilla and the other chocolate or as Big S says "Make them brown".

### Step 2

Ditto with our frosting, split it into two, added cocoa to one part to make chocolate butter cream frosting. Yum ! 

### Step 3

Bake according to package directions to make 24 cupcakes.Once done, allow them to cool. Did you notice our 2 colors? As hard as it is to wait for the cooling process, we decided to play with a few pattern creations ! Come on we had to. it's what we do .. make anytime into learning time !   Now it's all upto Big S’s decorating mania. Let the artist do her job while I wait for my sweet bite. 

### A delicious cupcake, a tight hug and a warm kiss with a gentle whisper –" Happy Birthday Mommy " – Slice of Heaven - Yum.



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