Christmas Reindeer Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line cups with paper liners.

2. Combine 9 tablespoons butter, white sugar, and vanilla extract in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well combined. Fold in half the flour and 1/4 cup milk and stir to combine. Repeat with remaining flour and milk. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full.

3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes.

4. Remove the tin from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes from the tin and cool completely on a wire rack before decorating, about 1 hour.

5. Combine confections' sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1 tablespoon milk in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Thin frosting with a little milk or water, if necessary. Add food coloring and stir until frosting is uniformly brown. Add more food coloring, 1 drop at a time, until frosting is the color you like.

6. Spread a thin layer of frosting on top of each cupcake. Break vanilla cookies in half. Place half a cookie on each cupcake as a mouth. Use a bit of frosting to glue a jelly bean onto the cookie for Rudolph's red nose. Stick 2 candy eyeballs into each cupcake. Break off a piece from each pretzel so they look like antlers and stick 2 onto the top of each cupcake. Shape chewy candies into ears and stick 2 onto the sides of each cupcake.

Tips

Instead of brown-colored icing for the reindeer cupcakes, you can use chocolate buttercream icing, which will be naturally brown.

You could color the frosting any color, such as red, blue, or green. Then use white ready-rolled fondant icing to cut out Christmas-inspired shapes to stick on top of the cupcakes. Try stars, Christmas trees, holly leaves, or other holiday-inspired shapes. Silver dragees also make a festive addition to sprinkle on top.

These cupcakes are great any time of year if you skip the reindeer decorating!