How to Make Unicorn Cupcakes

Wouldn’t your birthday kid enjoy a magical party? One with rainbows and sparkle and candies and, of course, unicorns? Then you need to see our Unicorn Kissing balm favors. And if you’re already sharing our Unicorn Kissing balms at this magical party, shouldn’t you have Unicorn Cupcakes to match? (You really should.)

“But they’re too hard to make,” I can hear you saying. Yes, all the way over here I can hear you saying it, and I’m just going to assure you that you can totally make these unicorn cupcakes because they are easy-peasy. And did I mention cute? They’re cute, too.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 vanilla cake mix, plus eggs/water/oil/etc. as detailed in the mix directions, OR feel free to prepare batter from your favorite vanilla cake recipe
2 cans vanilla frosting of choice, OR frosting recipe detailed below
Food color
chocolate chips
white chocolate chips
Marpoles marshmallows for unicorn horns
fun, colorful cupcake liners
wax paper
plastic wrap
decorating bag/tips

That takes the cake

Mix cake batter according to box/recipe directions. You can add a swirl of color to the cupcakes by removing 1 cup of batter to a small bowl and adding red food coloring, and another cup of batter to a second bowl and adding blue food coloring. (Or your own choice of colors!) Then pour the pink and blue batters back into the bowl with the white batter, stir until lightly swirled, and pour into the cupcake liners. Bake as directed, then allow to cool.

To make the eyes and smooches, download our free template and print. Then cover with a sheet of wax paper. You should still be able to see the unicorn faces to be able to trace them (see below).

Melt some semisweet chocolate chips in the microwave and pour the melted chocolate into a ziploc bag. Seal the bag, then cut off a tiny piece of one corner so you can pipe out the chocolate. Trace the eyelashes with chocolate, then allow to cool. (My first few were a mess, but give yourself a few tries and it gets easier!)

Melt some white chocolate chips in the microwave and add red food color until you have your favorite unicorn smooch pink hue. Pour the melted pink chocolate into a ziploc bag, seal it, then cut off a tiny piece of one corner to pipe out the chocolate. Outline the upper lip first, then fill in. Then repeat with the lower lip.

Place sheets of completed unicorn faces into the fridge to cool and harden completely while you prepare the frosting for the cupcakes.

Rainbow Frosting

If you’re making your own frosting, use your own recipe—or my favorite, which is:
2/3 cup butter, softened
4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
3-4 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

Whip butter, then add remaining ingredients and beat together until smooth. Add extra sugar or milk to get the desired consistency.

Set aside half of your white frosting, then divide the remaining half into three bowls. Make one pink, one yellow, and one blue. Mix each individually, then spread a sheet of plastic wrap out on the table. Put the pink frosting on the plastic wrap in a line, leaving about an inch of space at the top and bottom of the plastic. Then add a line of yellow frosting right next to the pink. Put the blue next to the yellow. Then pull the sides of the plastic wrap together, rolling all three lines of frosting into one. Snip the end off the plastic wrap, and slide the whole striped package of frosting into a prepped decorating bag. Twist off the back end, then squeeze until your frosting comes out with all three colors. The colors will blend together a bit and should look like a rainbow (see below).

Decorate Unicorn Cupcakes

Bring out that white frosting that you set aside earlier and frost each cupcake. You can use a tip if you prefer, but I simply smoothed it on as flat as possible.

Snip each Marpole marshmallow into thirds, then snip each end to a point. These will be your unicorn horns!

Bring out your candy unicorn faces and add them to bottom half of each cupcake. Slide the marshmallow horns into the cupcakes above the eyes. Then pipe rainbow manes along the side and behind each horn. You can make them wavy like I did, or use a different tip to make it look more like hair or rosettes or any shape you’d like!

You can even add ears (mine are rainbows, but you could make these white if you prefer!). Here’s how they’ll look as you decorate: