Cotton Candy Cupcakes

Welcome to the land of fluffy sweetness with our latest creation, Cotton Candy Cupcakes. A mashup of cotton candy and cupcakes, this sweet combo is sure to bring back memories of carnivals and candy floss.

Why Make Cotton Candy Cupcakes

Our Cotton Candy Cupcakes will take you way back to the fair and carnival days of childhood with their cotton candy flavor. 

We pipe a swirl of buttercream icing on each cupcake using a piping bag with a star-shaped tip, making each swirl as whimsical as the last.

It’s like creating tiny edible paintings, a final decorative touch that makes the dessert table more playful and fun.

You can’t forget the finishing touch. Decorate with cotton candy.

What cotton candy cupcake is complete without a sprinkle of color?

We choose our edible sprinkles to match the cotton candy color palette – soft pink and blues – and add to the visual experience of the cupcake, as much as the flavor. 

And sprinkles offer another textural contrast to the softness of the cotton candy-flavored frosting – they add crunch.

Each bite is a trip to the fair with sweet smell of spun sugar and laughter.

These cotton candy cupcakes aren’t just a dessert, they’re a universe of delight and nostalgia.

Gather Your Tools

You’ll need a mixing bowl, preferably large, and either a large whisk or an electric mixer. You will need room in which to mix the batter smoothly.

They need cupcake liners which sit in the muffin tin and help keep it moist and nice and bake well.

You’ll need a muffin tin and an oven preheated to the correct temperature – about 175°C, or 350°F.

When the cupcakes are baked – you’ll know when you stick a toothpick in the center, pull it out again, and the toothpick comes out clean – it’s time to let them cool on a wire rack.

Then you’ll prepare your frosting. Don’t forget your large piping bag, with the decorative tips inside, because that’s the fun part! 

Then you can add sprinkles, edible glitter, etc. These extra decorations that can be added to cupcakes are what bring a wow factor. 

Ingredients for Cotton Candy Cupcakes

• 1 box of premium white cake mix: This will create the base of your cupcake. You can substitute strawberry cake mix or even chocolate for your desired flavor. 
• 4 egg whites: Egg whites serve as an essential ingredient in most cupcake recipes, providing the batter with its structure and stability and giving it its fluffy light airy texture.
• 1/2 cup of refined vegetable oil: Without it, the cupcakes would be dry. Vegetable oil, which remains a liquid at room temperature, keeps the cupcakes tender and soft.
• 1 cup of water: Don’t forget to add water to your large mixing bowl to ensure moist cupcakes.
• 1 Tbsp of cotton candy flavoring: That iconic blue cotton candy taste will come from a heaping teaspoon of cotton candy flavoring. Find cotton candy flavoring at Michaels or on Amazon.
• Pink and blue food coloring: To make the cotton candy cupcakes the perfect color, add as many drops as you see fit to achieve the perfect pink or blue frosting.
• 3/4 cup of unsalted butter: The butter in the recipe affects not just flavor, but also fluffiness. It helps enhance the sweetness and provide a buttery flavor.
• 1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract: Vanilla extract works with the butter and sugar to provide that perfect sweet taste.
• 1 to 1½ tsp of cotton candy flavoring: This time for the frosting, use flavoring for tasty cotton candy buttercream.
• 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream or milk: For a silky, luxurious texture in your icing, don’t forget your heavy cream.
• 3–4 cups of confectioners’ sugar: For a cloud-like texture just a spoonful of powdered sugar isn’t enough. 
• Blue and pink sanding sugar: To add a sparkle reminiscent of fairy dust
• Blue and pink cotton candy and popsicle sticks: For a final, whimsical flourish

How to Make Cotton Candy Cupcakes

1. Prepare: Preheat your oven to 350°F (177°C) and line your muffin tins with paper liners.
2. Make your Mix: Mix together the white cake mix with the egg whites, vegetable oil, and water in one bowl. Beat until combined
3. Stir in as much cotton candy flavoring as you need into the mixture. Whisk together until it reaches the smoothness of a cotton candy cloud. 
4. Split the mix into two bowls. In one bowl, add pink food coloring, and in the other, add the blue food coloring.
5. Assemble and Bake: With light hands, layer the pink and blue batters in alternating stripes into the muffin cups, filling them only about 3/4 of the way so that they have room to rise.
6. Bake in your heated oven for 15-18 minutes, until each cupcake is a blank canvas for your frosting masterpiece. Let them cool completely once finished
7. Create your Frosting: Beat the butter, vanilla, cotton candy flavoring, and confectioners’ sugar into the frosting, adding cream as it takes shape.
8. Make it light and fluffy by playing with the cream to taste.
9. Separate, and color, the frosting bringing those carnival colors back into the picture. 
10. The Final Touches: Pipe the pastel frosting decoratively onto each cooled cupcake with a large star tip and dust with decorative sugar.
11. Top with a magical cotton candy stick (created by making a small ball of cotton candy and then touching it to a dampened popsicle stick.)

Tips and Substitutions

This cotton candy cupcakes recipe brings the fun back to baking with loud colors, and fun decorations.

Experiment with different base flavors. This recipe works great at chocolate cupcakes although you might not get bright colors. 

One of the key tips to making this recipe is to separate the batter into two bowls before coloring.

When you divide the batter you ensure you get that beautiful swirl. The same goes for the icing.

Make sure to divide the frosting into one pink and one blue before coloring.

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