Mama Bear Panda Cupcakes

In case you missed it, yesterday I posted some Fondant Flower Mother’s Day Cookies, and now today I’m back to share these mama bear panda cupcakes. My mom has always love pandas. Growing up she had a whole collection of them, recently my daughter has started her own panda collection. So we’ve been enjoying lots of panda-y things which inspired me to make some panda cupcakes for Mother’s Day – after all there’s a mama bear inside of all of us!

I should probably also mention that my mama bear lives across the world from me. So because I’m just that nice of a daughter I not only baked her these treats, but I’ll eat them for her as well. Your welcome mom! I mean think of how much extra walking you would have to do for these babies. Whew – glad I can be of assistance!

Hopefully you’re not across the world from your mama and you can make her some of these beary cute little treats. Better yet grab the kiddos and make some pandas with them. Would you believe these pandas were made with only TWO cutters. Yep, two I promise. And one of for the head meaning all the rest is made with one single cutter. Eek! I love it. Let’s get started.

First you’re going to want to bake up your favorite cupcakes and make a batch of buttercream. (for these cupcakes a half batch of my buttercream would be enough) Next frost the cupcakes in a flat cinnamon roll swirl using a large round 2A frosting tip. (click here for more info) When your done frosting the cupcakes set the frosting bag aside you’ll need it to assemble the little bears.

You’ll need a few typical fondant tools and a few other decorating items.

fondant rolling pin
3in circle cutter
small oval cutter
food safe paint brush
knife
candy eyes
pink, black, and white fondant (you will need a much larger portion of white fondant)
black or grey sanding sugar
water

Step 1: Roll out black fondant and cut 5 small ovals per panda cupcake. (2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 nose) Using the pieces you just cut roll up one oval for each panda into a small tic tac shaped ball for the bear’s noses. Cutting them out first keeps them all nice an even. Using the food safe paint brush, very lightly brush the ear and eye pieces with water (not too much!). Then quickly cover with sanding sugar and set aside. these will need to dry before using them. Of course you can skip the sanding sugar if you don’t want that shimmery furry look.

Step 2: Roll out the light pink fondant and cut 2 ovals per panda for their cheeks. Using a DRY food safe brush cover in edible pearl dust. (also optional) Set aside.

Step 3: Roll out white fondant and cut into 3in circles. As fondant is normally a little soft after being worked with you will want to let these sit for about 20 minutes before transferring to the cupcakes. (they will bend out of shape if not)

Now to pull those panda’s together!

Step 4: Flatten and smooth the cupcakes a little more by gently turning upside down over a paper towel. Use the paper towel to smooth in the tail.

Step 5: Gently lay the white fondant circle over the cupcake frosting. Gently smooth the fondant on the icing using the palm of your hand.

Step 6: Using the same small oval cutter cut out a small bit of the cheeks at opposite angles so the eyes can slide right into the cheeks. Also grab that leftover piping bag from frosting the cupcakes and add two dots of buttercream where the ears need to go. You can also “glue” on a ball on fondant to hold them up, or just stick them under the fondant.

Step 7: Using just a tiny bit of buttercream or water, glue the eyeballs on top of the black portion of the eyes. Glue the nose on to the face. Before placing the ears you will need to trim a tiny bit off to make the edge flat, keep the trimming that is now your mouth!

Now you can leave your sweet little pandas just as they are, or add some bling! I chose to add some little pearl sprinkles, pink pearls balls of fondant, and little collars made from the scrap bits of pink! I also made a few bows using the same oval but pressing the center in with the paint brush end.

Aren’t these guys just so cute! You just want to….eat their head off!