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Lightyear Cupcakes (vanilla cupcakes with a swirl of green, purple, and white frosting with candy stars and vanilla cupcakes with white frosting and an orange fondant cat decoration)

Lightyear Cupcakes

Celebrate the Disney Pixar’s new movie Lightyear with these cupcakes inspired by Buzz and Sox! These vanilla cupcakes are topped with colorful marshmallow frosting, sprinkles, and cat shaped fondant!
Course Dessert
Keyword Buzz Lightyear, Lightyear, Pixar
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 18 minutes
Total Time 48 minutes
Servings 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

Vanilla Cupcakes

  • 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 large egg white
  • 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  • ½ cup milk

Marshmallow Frosting

  • 1 ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 7.5 oz jar marshmallow fluff or creme
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • green gel food coloring
  • purple gel food coloring

Decorations

  • orange fondant
  • white candy star sprinkles

Equipment

  • piping bags
  • large star piping tip
  • cat face cookie cutter

Instructions

Vanilla Cupcakes

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners. Depending on how thick they are, use two cupcake liners in each cup.
  2. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
  3. In a medium bowl, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.
  4. Add in egg, egg white, and vanilla; beat until blended.
  5. On low speed, gradually beat in flour mixture, one third at a time, alternating with milk, beginning and ending with flour.
  6. Divide batter among liners and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pan. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Marshmallow Frosting

  1. On medium speed, beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
  2. On low speed, beat in the marshmallow fluff until just combined, about 30 seconds.
  3. Gradually beat in sugar and vanilla, then beat on medium speed until fluffy.
  4. Separate the frosting into four bowls. Add a few drops of green gel food coloring to one bowl and a few drops of purple gel food coloring to another bowl. Stir until will combined. Keep the other two bowls of frosting white.
  5. Add the green, purple, and one of the white icings to piping bags. Cut off the tips and place them all together into a large piping bag fitted with a large star tip.
  6. Place the remaining white frosting into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip.

Fondant Decoration

  1. Roll the orange fondant out to about ¼ inch thickness.
  2. Cut the fondant out into cat shapes using a small cat shaped cookie cutter.
  3. Place the cut out pieces onto a piece of wax paper until you’re ready to decorate.

Assembly

  1. Pipe the green, purple, and white frosting mix onto the tops of half of the cupcakes.
  2. Gently press two to three candy sprinkle stars into the frosting swirl.
  3. Pipe the white frosting onto the tops of the remaining half of the cupcakes.
  4. Gently press a fondant cat onto each of the white frosted cupcakes.