Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes
Pretty cupcakes featuring a dense funfetti cupcake and rich vanilla buttercream, decorated to look like an ice cream sundae!
2014 was a special year for my family. We celebrated both my daughter Ava’s first birthday as well as my Granny’s 100th birthday. How wonderful is that?
Birthdays are pretty wonderful no matter what age you are turning though. It is a nice feeling to have someone plan a party all around you and I think that is true no matter your age.
In fact, the 2015 Enbridge Birthday Survey found that 82% of Canadians agree that they feel special when someone puts a lot of energy into celebrating their birthday.
Like many Canadians, what really makes my day is spending time with close friends and family. Preferably with a lovely cake or delicious cupcakes.
You really don’t need to be a skilled cake decorator to make an awesome birthday cake.
I designed this super cute Owl Smash Cake for Keira’s first birthday and Ava’s first birthday featured a homemade princess cake and princess cookies in a jar for guests to take home.
My girls might not ever remember those cakes, but when they look back at the pictures they will see the love and care that went into make their birthdays special.
They will see the effort that went into making each subsequent birthday special too!
How to make Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes
Today I am sharing an adorable ice cream sundae cupcake recipe perfect for celebrating any birthday – from 1 to 100!
If you want to make cupcakes that look like ice cream sundaes, you will not be able to achieve this look with just an ice cream scoop, you need to sculpt the buttercream a bit.
You may need to make another recipe of buttercream depending on how generous your scoops are, I usually double the recipe for these.
Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes
Cupcake Ingredients:
1 2/3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Cup Butter, room temperature
3 Eggs
2/3 Cup Buttermilk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Sprinkles
Buttercream Ingredients:
1 2/3 Cups Icing Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Butter, Room Temperature
Topping Ingredients:
1 Cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
Sour Cherry Candies
Sprinkles
Cupcake Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
Cream your butter and sugar together with a stand mixer then add in eggs, milk and vanilla until blended.
Slowly add the dry ingredients until smooth, being sure not to over-mix.
Line a muffin tin with baking cups and fill each with the cake mixture, filling each about 3/4 full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Buttercream Directions:
Cream your butter then slowly add icing sugar and vanilla extract then beat for about 3-4 minutes, or until frosting is light and fluffy.
Decorating Directions:
Bring about a cup of water to a simmer in a small saucepan. Set a heatproof bowl over the mouth of your saucepan. Make sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.
Pour your chocolate into the bowl and stir occasionally as it softens. Once most of the chocolate is melted remove the bowl from the heat and continue to stir. Stir in the vegetable oil until well combined and smooth.
Ensuring that the cupcakes are completely cooled. Use an ice cream scoop to to create mounds of buttercream on top of the cupcakes.
Use a butter knife to shape the buttercream to look like scoops of ice cream.
Spoon the chocolate mixture over your scoops of “ice cream” to replicate the look of chocolate syrup.
Decorate each cupcake with sprinkles and top with sour cherry candies.
Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes
Pretty cupcakes featuring a dense funfetti cupcake and rich vanilla buttercream, decorated to look like an ice cream sundae!
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients
- 1 2/3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 Cup Butter, room temperature
- 3 Eggs
- 2/3 Cup Buttermilk
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 Cup Sprinkles
Buttercream Ingredients
- 1 2/3 Cups Icing Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 Cup Butter, Room Temperature
Topping Ingredients
- 1 Cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips
- 1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
- Sour Cherry Candies
- Sprinkles
Instructions
Cupcake Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
- Cream your butter and sugar together with a mixer then add in eggs, milk and vanilla until blended.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients until smooth, being sure not to over-mix.
- Line a muffin tin with baking cups and fill each with the cake mixture, filling each about 3/4 full.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Buttercream Directions
- Cream your butter then slowly add icing sugar and vanilla extract then beat for about 3-4 minutes, or until frosting is light and fluffy.
Decorating Directions
- Bring about a cup of water to a simmer in a small saucepan. Set a heatproof bowl over the mouth of your saucepan. Make sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.
- Pour your chocolate into the bowl and stir occasionaly as it softens. Once most of the chocolate is melted remove the bowl from the heat and continue to stir. Stir in the vegetable oil until well combined and smooth.
- Ensuring that the cupcakes are completely cooled. use an ice cream scoop to to create mounds of buttercream on top of the cupcakes.
- Use a butter knife to shape the buttercream to look like scoops of ice cream.*
- Spoon the chocolate mixture over your scoops of "ice cream" to replicate the look of chocolate syrup.
- Decorate each cupcake with sprinkles and top with sour cherry candies.
Notes
Note: You will not be able to achieve this look with just the scoop. You may need to make another recipe of buttercream depending on how generous your scoops are.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1 CupcakeAmount Per Serving: Calories: 545Total Fat: 32gSaturated Fat: 18gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 12gCholesterol: 108mgSodium: 359mgCarbohydrates: 63gFiber: 2gSugar: 46gProtein: 5g
These look great, perfect for an upcoming birthday party for my girl, not sure I could pull it off…..
Wow, those look amazing! What a fun cupcake recipe, thanks for sharing it!
What a neat idea! It looks like the real thing. 🙂
Thanks for sharing,I can wait to try these
Those sound awesome. I would literally eat the entire batch myself.
What an adorable idea! You could make an entire ice cream themed party featuring these too!
These are too stinking cute! My little lady’s birthday is coming up, I have to make these!
These are so gorgeous! I love how pretty and yummy they look!
Those look so pretty that I don’t know if I could eat them. Of course I would because they look delicious as well! Yum!
Even though I don’t like to admit that I’m getting another year older, I do love celebrating my birthday. Those ice cream sundae cupcakes are amazing and would be great to serve at any party.
Oh how cute! At first sight I thought the buttercream was real ice cream. You got me! LOL
Yay! That makes me happy 🙂
This is genius! GENIUS! I love frosting, but I’ll take ice cream on top of a cupcake ANY DAY over frosting. This is absolutely awesome.
Oh my goodness, in so many ways, YES! This is amazing. I am such an ice cream girl and I am totally drooling over here.
These are so cute. How festive and fun for a birthday party.
These look so delicious and easy to make. I will have to try making these on the weekend when my friend brings her kids over.
It’s my son’s birthday in a few weeks and I LOVE the idea of this! YUM! You did such a good job at these! I want to hire you to make ours! 🙂
Those are almost too pretty eat! Just kidding – I would gobble those things down!
That is one seriously awesome looking cupcake! My boys who adore frosting would love that generous scoop on top, too.
Those are so beautiful!! What an amazing year to have a 1 year old and a 100 year old!!! Happy birthday to both ladies!!!
Oh yum! This would make an awesome surprise treat. That melted chocolate looks so good!
What an awesome and fun idea to pair ice cream with cupcakes. I can imagine these taste SO delicious.
What a clever idea! I would love to try this. Thanks for sharing.
Those are so cute! Perfect way to have cake and ice cream! Not sure mine would turn out as perfect lol – I’m afraid of it being a Pinterest Find and Fail lol!
omg how cute are these!! They look cute and delicious, thanks for sharing 🙂
These look like they are topped in real ice cream. What a fun cupcake!
These are absolutely perfect, they look too good to eat in fact 🙂
Wow! 100 years old! What a great birthday for grandma! I think these cupcakes are so beautiful!
These cupcakes are so cute! Love this idea.
those look delicious
Hi, Elizabeth. I loved this receipe. I will are this for my sun´s birthay. Your blog´s wonderfull. Take care.
lol “suns”
My sister and i made these on Saturday for the kids play group,they gobbled them up so fast….now they didnt look as yummy as yours but they were delicious
Hi! Is icing sugar the same thing as powdered sugar? And how many cupcakes does this recipe make? Thanks!
Yes, same thing. I got about 20 cupcakes out of it but I overfilled them so normally you should get 24ish.
These cupcakes look so good and sounds easy enough to make. I am sure they would be a hit at any birthday party. I know my grandchildren would love them, in fact I would too. 🙂
Thank you! Have a wonderful day, i pinned them for later!
I will be making my granddaughter cup cake for her birthday. Great idea!
What exactly are you doing with a butter knife to get the edge of the ice cream to look realistic?
The edge is all the doing of the ice cream scoop. The Butter knife is useful forming a large “crease” between the dome of the “ice cream” and the edge.
This might be a silly question, but what is icing sugar? And where can you find it? I would love to make these for my mom and brothers birthday next weekend!! Thank you!!
It’s just another name for powdered sugar or confectioners sugar.
These are so adorable! My son is turning 4 this December and I think I will have to make these for his bday!
I love the look of these. They’re so fun and creative!
That just looks so good! Love all the buttercream on top!
OMG OMG OMG smores cupcakes r created at now this OMG!!!!!
How many days do you think these would keep nicely?
3-4 days
How many cupcakes does one batch make?
About a dozen.
do you need to freeze these at all so the buttercream doesn’t melt?
Just store in a cool space. I probably wouldn’t freeze them….
I wanted to make these for a bazaar that we’re having at the school which is going to be outside. Will the chocolate or icing melt? Any tips on how to prevent it?
Have you tried using the chocolate hard shell syrup instead of melting chocolate? Just wondering if that would work as well?
About how many cupcakes does this make?
Great recipe! My grandchildren would love these!
If this is not the cutest cupcake ever!!!!! I have three little nieces who will be in a play next week. I wanted to make them a treat; and couldn’t decide what to make them that would be both delicious and cute–that is until I saw these ice cream sundae cupcakes. Thanks for posting. I feel like a kid again, myself!!
Little cuties! These were perfect for my kids’ birthdays in quarantine. It was really sad for them not being able to have their friends over but these cupcakes were so fun for them to help decorate (and even more fun for them to eat!) that they were a bit happier. I’ll defiantly be making these for birthdays in the future! Thank you Elizabeth!