Celebrate Grilling Season with Grill Cupcakes!
These Grill Cupcakes are a whimsical dessert to help you celebrate a summer barbecue party!
I can’t think of a more cute cupcake design for the summer – no wonder these little guys are such a big hit. Perfect for summer parties and BBQs, they are sure to stun party goers with their whimsy.
For other great summer cupcake ideas check out my Butterfly Cupcakes, Firecracker Cupcakes, and Lemon Beehive Cupcakes.
Grill Cupcakes
Cupcakes Ingredients:
1 ¾ cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup cocoa
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
Frosting Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
4 tbsp whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
red gel food colouring
orange gel food colouring
red and orange cupcake sprinkles
Gummy Bear candy
Box of toothpicks
Royal Icing Ingredients:
4 egg whites
4 C powder sugar, sifted
1 tsp lemon extract
Black gel food colouring
Cupcake Recipe:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Set aside.
Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
In another large bowl, stir together eggs, milk, oil and vanilla extract. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients bowl and stir together.
Beat on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes. Slowly add boiling water and continue to beat. The mixture will be a little runny.
Fill the cupcake liners with the batter about ¾ way full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully transfer cupcakes to a wire baking rack to continue cool.
Frosting Recipe:
Beat the softened butter on its own until smooth, then add vanilla extract.
Add powder sugar with heavy cream into the creamed butter until it becomes a smooth and thick texture.
If the frosting is too thick, then add more heavy cream, if the frosting is too thin, add more powder sugar.
Take a spoonful of the frosting and hold the spoon upside down. If the frosting drops off the spoon add more powdered sugar, however if the frosting doesn’t fall off the spoon then it is ready.
Put 1/2 of the frosting into a separate bowl… put several drops of orange gel food colouring in that bowl and stir well to blend the colour.
In the second bowl add the half of the frosting… add several drops of red gel food colouring… Stir well to mix the colour.
Scoop the orange frosting into a pastry bag with a frosting tip. Scoop the red frosting into the same pastry bag.
Twist the open end of the pastry bag to push the orange/red frosting to the tip. Using the filled pastry bag work the frosting in a circle on the top of each cupcake until they are fully frosted.
Royal Icing Recipe:
Beat egg whites in a large bowl with mixer at high speed until foamy.
Gradually add sugar and lemon extract and beat until thickened.
Add black gel food colouring and stir to blend well.
Directions:
-Tape wax paper covering a cookie sheet .
-Using a small pastry bag filled with the black royal icing and a #2 tip.
-Using royal icing outline a BBQ grill.
-Go over the outline of the grill with the black royal icing to reinforce the icing grill.
-Allow to dry for 5-10 hours. -Cut the wax paper holding the completed BBQ grill into squares surrounding the image.
-Ensure the grills are dry, gently touch one of the images.
-If the images are dry peel them off the wax paper and place on the frosted cupcake.
Shish Kabobs:
-We used gummy bear candy, cut off the body side of the candy leaving a plain square of a gummy candy.
-Cut those pieces in half.
-Slide each small square piece of gummy candy onto a toothpick. If the toothpick is too big for the royal icing grill, cut off the ends.
-Place the kabobs on the grill.
Grill Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup cocoa
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup boiling water
Frosting Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tbsp whipping cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
- red gel food colouring
- orange gel food colouring
- red and orange cupcake sprinkles
- Gummy Bear candy
- Box of toothpicks
Royal Icing Ingredients
- 4 egg whites
- 4 C powder sugar
- 1 tsp Lemon Extract
- Add 1/4 C powder sugar until stiff peaks form
- Black gel food colouring
Instructions
Cupcake Recipe
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- In another large bowl, stir together eggs, milk, oil and vanilla extract. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients bowl and stir together.
- Beat on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes. Slowly add boiling water and continue to beat. The mixture will be a little runny.
- Fill the cupcake liners with the batter about ¾ way full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully transfer cupcakes to a wire baking rack to continue cool.
Frosting Recipe
- -Beat the softened butter on its own until smooth.
- -Add vanilla extract.
- -Add powder sugar with heavy cream into the creamed butter until it becomes a smooth and thick texture.
- -If the frosting is too thick, add more heavy cream, if the frosting is too thin, add more powder sugar.
- -Take a spoonful of the frosting and hold the spoon upside down.... if the frosting drops off the spoon add more powdered sugar .... if the frosting doesn't fall off the spoon then it is ready.
- -Put 1/2 of the frosting into a separate bowl... put several drops of orange gel food colouring in that bowl and stir well to blend the colour.
- -In the second bowl add the half of the frosting... add several drops of red gel food colouring... Stir well to mix the colour.
- -Scoop the orange frosting into a pastry bag with a frosting tip. Scoop the red frosting into the same pastry bag.
- -Twist the open end of the pastry bag to push the orange/red frosting to the tip. Using the filled pastry bag work the frosting in a circle on the top of each cupcake until they are fully frosted.
Royal Icing Recipe
- -Beat egg whites in a large bowl with mixer at high speed until foamy.
- -Gradually add sugar and lemon extract and beat until thickened.
- -Add black gel food colouring... stir to blend well.
Directions
- -Tape wax paper covering a cookie sheet .
- -Using a small pastry bag filled with the black royal icing and a #2 tip.
- -Using royal icing outline a BBQ grill.
- -Go over the outline of the grill with the black royal icing to reinforce the icing grill.
- -Allow to dry for 5-10 hours. -Cut the wax paper holding the completed BBQ grill into squares surrounding the image.
- -Ensure the grills are dry, gently touch one of the images.
- -If the images are dry peel them off the wax paper and place on the frosted cupcake.
Shish Kabobs
- -We used gummy bear candy, cut off the body side of the candy leaving a plain square of a gummy candy.
- -Cut those pieces in half.
- -Slide each small square piece of gummy candy onto a toothpick. If the toothpick is too big for the royal icing grill, cut off the ends.
- -Place the kabobs on the grill.
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size:
1 gramsAmount Per Serving: Unsaturated Fat: 0g
Recipe and Photos by Chef Amber of Hot Springs, Arizona for FrugalMomEh.com
Okay, those are the cutest things ever for a summer BBQ dessert! I cannot believe the detail! I honestly think they would take me too long to make with so many steps, but if there a big celebration, I might try them. But I doubt very seriously they would look anything like those. LOL!
How cute are these! They would be great to take to a summer BBQ for a dessert, thanks for sharing this!
These are brilliant, a lot of hard work though so probably not for me but my son might like making them, he’s into that sort of thing 🙂
omg these are so cute, I’m not sure I could eat’em!
What a work of art….I could never eat them, but I’d sit and stare at my creations lol
Those are so cute !
These make me want to have a bbq party just so I can make and serve them. So cute!!
Oh wow, those are so fancy! Cupcakes are all the rage these days, but I haven’t seen any in this particular theme before.
These are so adorable and perfect for any backyard event! The little skewers and grate really show great detail.
These are so cute!! Perfect idea to take to a BBQ!
I have never seen anything like these! So cute!
These are adorable! We made some just like these for a summer barbeque.
Oh! So cute! Me and some friends are having a cupcake-off in the summer and I might make these. Although I would make the grate out of chocolate most likely and one solid color for the flame. Do a chocolate and lemon maybe? or pomegranate. Gonna be so much fun!
I have to agree with everyone: these are so very cute!! However, I just made them and i ran into a number of problems. Firstly, the cupcake ingredients and the ingredients in the cupcake directions are different. Secondly, it didn’t how many cupcakes this recipe made along with how much to fill the liners. I was left guessing on the cupcake batter because my first attempt (which wasted so many ingredients) didn’t look right at all! i also guessed and filled 24 cupcake liners 2/3 full. Big mistake; they overflowed and stuck to the pan and didn’t taste too good anyway so i didnt feel bad throwing them away. I ended up using a trusty vanilla cupcake recipe for 12 cupcakes and a random chocolate cupcake recipe for another 12. I did use the grill royal icing recipe and that turned out well so far (still waiting for the grills to dry) but i only ended up using MAYBE 1/3 of the icing for 20 some grills and it seemed like such a big waste. I also used the frosting recipe and it turned out pretty good. There was enough left to frost maybe 12 or so more cupcakes so that was also disappointing because i only made so many, but who knows this original recipe could very well be for 36 cupcakes but the directions are too unclear and the total cupcakes are unpublished so it would certainly be a help to edit it. Great idea though!!
Oh wow, I just looked it over and see what you mean. I’ve just updated with the full instructions, thank you for letting me know! The recipe makes 30 cupcakes (I’ve also updated with that too).
I made the grills and cannot get them off the wax paper without breaking and they Re the same thickness as shown. Help please!
Adorable cupcakes!
Just a note. Chef Amber’s Sweet Tooth Bakery is actually in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
AR is for Arkansas. Arizona is AZ.
Don’t worry, you’re in good company with that frequent mistake that people make about our state’s abbreviation.
I made these for a BBQ and they were a total hit! Thank you for the idea and great instructions!
Glad to hear!
I would probably suggest to make the grills from chocolate so they harden faster (me not being a fan of super sweet frosting) but these are cute as all hell. I am definitely not an expert decorator though.
Chocolate would probably work quite well too!
Very cute and would like to try to make these . Have you tried to make them w/. a pretzel stick maybe instead of the tooth pick . Have been thinking of the safer side of that part in case you have kids in the mix that don’t know not to eat that part . If you have how did it turn out ? If not what are your thoughts on that . Thank you .
By adding the 2 frostings together as you describe below, when I go to frost the cupcakes will the frost mix so it’s orange and red like shown in your picture? It seems to me if I add one color and then the other on top, the first color will come out and when it’s gone the next one. Am I not correct? Thank you!!
Scoop the orange frosting into a pastry bag with a frosting tip. Scoop the red frosting into the same pastry bag.
Sorry, yes that should read “Scoop the orange frosting into one side of a pastry bag with a frosting tip. Scoop the red frosting into the other side of the same pastry bag.”
These are adorable! It appears that there are sprinkles or something on top of the frosting, but underneath the grills.. Am I correct? Just wanted to make sure these look as close to yours as possible…. Great creativity! 🙂
Yes, round cupcake sprinkles. They are in the ingredient list but left out of the directions for some reason. oops!
This is a very cute idea. I went with chocolate for the grill though. So much easier.
Great idea! I was thinking, if you placed some jumbo chocolate chips on it point side down, it would look like burgers!
These are adorable! I am definitely going to try this recipe out soon! Where did you get those cupcake liners?
Sorry but fancy looking unhealthy food has overtaken the internet. Makes me sad.
They are cupcakes Sharon, not salad. They aren’t supposed to be healthy. They are for special occasions, not for everyday meals.