A co-worker of mine gifted me a couple of packs of mini cupcake liners yesterday, so what was a girl to do but make cupcakes! With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, I decided to make my Lucky Cupcakes, complete with Lucky Charms marshmallows. Heating the oven on a 90-degree afternoon with no air conditioning however, wasn’t my brightest move.

Cake:

To be a little more festive, I added green food coloring to the batter. Now for mini cupcakes, most people are like, um, that takes forever and is a total pain. And I agree. If I didn’t have my secret special tool for this I would have only made mini cupcakes once in my life. But with my batter pen – I make them all the time.

Spooning the batter into mini cupcake liners is nearly impossible, neatly at least. One day while perusing the kitchen aisle at Home Goods I stumbled on this batter pen. It was made for pancake batter, but I thought it would be perfect for getting batter into cupcake liners without all the mess. And it was. It was a pretty good deal at $12, and I absolutely love it!

Once the cake batter is mixed, simply pour the batter into the batter pen and seal the end. Then you can neatly squeeze the batter into each individual cupcake liner, no matter how big or how small, without getting batter everywhere.

The mini cupcakes bake much quicker, so I tend to put them in for about half the time and check them. Once baked, leave them in the pan a couple of minutes to set, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Marshmallows:

While the cupcakes are baking you can separate the marshmallows. I dump the whole box into a large bowl and then separate the marshmallows by putting them into a smaller bowl. Set aside the large bowl once the marshmallows have been removed because you’ll want to put back the marshmallows you don’t use and mix everything again before putting it back in the box.

Icing:

Make or buy your frosting, I used vanilla frosting so that I could tint it green as well.

I have a secret for my piping bags as well:

To easily fill the piping bags I use a large glass. First I put the coupler and tip on the end of the bag (cutting the plastic opening as well). Then I place the bag into a large glass and fold the piping bag over the glass. Then just spoon your icing into the piping bag. Once full; roll the plastic off the glass and twist. This is a super easy way to fill the piping bags without assistance and without getting icing all over the end of the bag. No icing will squish out all over your hands this way. You’re welcome!

Decorating:

Once cool, frost each cupcake with your desired pattern, use a generous amount of frosting. I used a wide-open star tip for maximum frosting output. Next, add your Lucky Charms marshmallows for decoration. I tend to stick with the classic marshmallow designs.

Enjoy!

These are super adorable and totally nostalgic.

I can’t wait to take these to work this week for everyone to enjoy! All boxed up and ready to go.

Here’s another trick! Egg cartons are great for transporting mini cupcakes!