Dinosaur Cupcakes
Our Stegosaurus-inspired Dinosaur Cupcakes were a hit at our Dinosaur Birthday Party – easy to make, delicious to eat, and pretty in any color combination.
My daughter decided she wanted to have “dinosaur muffins” at her Dinosaur Birthday Party. Whenever we asked her, she was very clear that she wanted dinosaur muffins. I don’t exactly know what a dinosaur muffin is, but she ended up very happy with these Dinosaur Cupcakes. Once we hit upon the idea of Stegosaurus-inspired cupcakes, the hardest part was figuring what to use to make the spikes. Once we did that, the rest was a piece of (cup)cake. They looked adorable on our dessert table and the kids recognized them right away as being Stegosauruses. This is a great way to add some dinosaur-iness to a Dinosaur Party without trying to replicate an actual dino head or T-Rex body on a cupcake. We give it a Two Sisters Party Planning Thumbs Up!
Ingredients You Will Need
How to Make the Cupcakes
Step 1: Make a batch of cupcakes. You can use a cake box mix, we have all the instructions you’ll need to make them taste just like homemade right here. Or you can make them from scratch with our yummy Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes recipe. We used chocolate cupcakes but Vanilla Cupcakes would taste great too.
How to Make the Buttercream Frosting
Step 2: The key to these delicious cupcakes is our Best Buttercream Frosting recipe. It is light and creamy and buttery and super delicious! You will find the recipe and directions here. One batch of frosting will be enough to frost 12 cupcakes. If you used a boxed cake mix, you should have about 18 cupcakes and will need to double the frosting recipe.
How to Color the Frosting
Step 3: Now it is time to tint the frosting. We like the Wilton Color Right Food Coloring. It is concentrated and you can get a bright color without having to use too much food coloring. Here are the formulas we used for our Dinosaur frosting colors:
Dark Green: 6 drops of Yellow and 2 drops of Blue.
Bright Green: 4 drops of Yellow and 1 drop of Blue.
Brown: No food coloring, instead we added 2 tablespoons of Hershey’s Cocoa Powder and mixed until it was completely combined.
White: No food coloring.
How to Make the Dinosaur Spikes
Step 4: We tried and abandoned a lot of different ideas for making the stegosaurus-like spikes on these Dinosaur Cupcakes. We tried moldable candies like flavored Tootsie Rolls, Fruit by the Foot, little mini sugar cookies, cut-up Candy Melts – nothing looked exactly right. By happenstance, we saw this Wilton Star Candy Mold at Michaels and an idea was born.
Steps 5-7: We melted Wilton Candy Melts in the microwave and poured the melted candy into the mold and stuck the mold into the freezer to harden.
Step 8: After about 20 minutes, this is what we had – a pretty candy star.
Step 9: Using a sharp knife sitting in hot water, we prepared to turn a star into a dinosaur spike.
Step 10: Easy peasy. We got 4-5 spikes (depending on breakage) out of each star.
How to Assemble the Dinosaur Cupcakes
Step 11: Time to gather up your cupcakes, colored frosting, and candy dinosaur spikes.
Step 12: Using a Wilton 2D Decorating Tip, we added a generous swirl of our Best Buttercream Frosting onto the cupcake.
Step 13: Now add the candy dinosaur spikes. With the point up and the cut side down, press them down into the frosting in a straight row.
Step 14: That’s all there is to it. So pretty!
Step 15: We put orange dinosaur spikes on green frosting, light green dinosaur spikes on the chocolate frosting, and green spikes on the white frosting. No rules here. Let your creativity be your guide.
Step 16: And these cupcakes look great in any color combination. And since girls love dinosaurs too, you might want to make up a batch of Princess Dinosaur Cupcakes!
Other Fun Kid’s Cupcakes You Will Love
Did you Make This Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!
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Dinosaur Cupcakes
Our Stegosaurus inspired Dinosaur Cupcakes were a hit at our Dinosaur Birthday Party - easy to make, delicious to eat and pretty in any color combination.
Ingredients
- 18 Chocolate Cupcakes
- 2 batches of our The Best Buttercream Frosting
- Wilton Color Right Food Coloring - Yellow, Blue
- Star Candy Mold
- Candy Melts - Dark Green, Light Green, Chocolate, Orange
- Wilton 2D Decorating Tip
Instructions
- Make a batch of cupcakes. You can use a cake box mix, we have all the instructions you’ll need to make them taste just like homemade right here. Or you can make them from scratch with our yummy Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes recipe.
- The key to these delicious cupcakes is our Best Buttercream Frosting recipe. It is light and creamy and buttery and super delicious! You will find the recipe and directions here. One batch of frosting will be enough to frost 12 cupcakes. If you used a boxed cake mix, you should have about 18 cupcakes and will need to double the frosting recipe.
- Now it is time to tint the frosting. We like the Wilton Color Right Food Coloring. It is concentrated and you can get a bright color without having to use too much food coloring. Here are the formulas we used for our Dinosaur frosting colors: Dark Green: 6 drops of Yellow and 2 drops of Blue. Bright Green: 4 drops of Yellow and 1 drop of Blue. Brown: No food coloring, instead we added 2 tablespoons of Hershey’s Cocoa Powder and mixed until it was completely combined. White: No food coloring.
- Melt the candy melts in the microwave and pour the melted candy mixture into a star candy mold.
- Allow the candy stars to harden.
- Using a sharp knife sitting in hot water, cut out 4-5 dinosaur spikes from each candy star.
- Using a Wilton 2D Decorating Tip, add a generous swirl of our Best Buttercream Frosting onto the cupcake.
- Finally, with the point up and the cut side down, press the candy melt dinosaur spikes down into the frosting in a straight row.
Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!
Do you think you could make the spikes a week ahead of time?
Yes. They will last for quite a while in an airtight container.
Thank you for this idea! I’m a good baker but I didn’t want to take on the task of trying to create something that resembles a dinosaur (or tried to anyway). Love this idea for my little guys 2nd birthday!
Hi! What a fun post. Thanks for including us!
Hello all! I need to make 60 cupcakes and I’m going to use this idea for the Dino spikes. Question–how many bags of Wilton candy melts should I buy to make that many stars? Thanks! Bree
Hi Bree, it’s been a while but my memory is that it took three to four wafers per star. Every bag of candy melts have about 100 (give or take), so I would say you need three bags of candy melts.