My office is celebrating Mardi Gras this week with a Fat Tuesday luncheon and potluck. I thought about preparing some Crock Pot Jambalaya, but really wanted to bring dessert. My cousins are from Louisiana and each year they used to send us a King Cake in New York via mail. I looooved the King Cake – it was cinnamony, flaky  colorful and had creamy frosting. I looked up a few King Cake recipes and thought about making one – but with a relatively small office, it seemed like it’d be too big to prepare. Then I realized – I could make Mardi Gras cupcakes! Of course! These aren’t quite King Cake – they’re not flaky or bread-like – but they are fun colors, have creamy frosting and cinnamon. And B (a chocoholic) more than approved of them – he even asked if I could leave him some at home!

Mardi Gras Cupcakes

Inspired by Hoosier Homemade

For the cupcakes:

Here’s what you need:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 cup buttermilk (instead of water indicated on box)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (per cake mix directions)
• 3 eggs (I used ¾ c Egg Beaters)
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• Purple, yellow and green food coloring (I used yellow, green and blue+red for the purple)

Here’s what you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners. Mine made about 17 cupcakes.
3. Use an electric mixer to beat together all the cake mix, buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs and cinnamon on high speed. Mix well so batter isn’t lumpy – especially if you use powdered buttermilk like I did.
4. Divide the batter equally into three parts in three separate bowls. I had probably about a cup of batter in each bowl. Using food coloring, create one batter bowl green, one batter bowl yellow, and the third batter bowl purple (I mixed blue and red food coloring).
5. Get a tablespoon for each color batter.
6. Start with one color and take a spoonful of batter. Push batter up against one side of cupcake wrapper.
7. Fill in with the other colors, using the same technique, pushing batter up against other sides of cupcake wrapper until you have the green, purple and yellow batter in thirds in the cupcake wrapper. Don’t worry about making these perfect, they will still taste great!
8. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes (or what the box says), until toothpick comes out clean. Frost when cool.

Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

Here’s what you need:

• 1 cup butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2-3 tsp cinnamon

Here’s what you do:

1. Beat butter with an electric mixer until fluffy.
2. Add powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time, beating well until completely combined.
3. Add the milk, 1 tablespoon at a time until frosting is creamy and thick. 
4. Mix in vanilla and cinnamon until well combined.
5. Frost cupcakes when cooled!

Tri-colored cupcakes ready to go into the oven

Fresh out of the oven – check out the colors!

Printables from TomKat Studio