food

Mario Pull-Apart Cupcake Cake

This Mario pull-apart cupcake cake will always be a winner at game night!

food

Mario Pull-Apart Cupcake Cake

This Mario pull-apart cupcake cake will always be a winner at game night!

Ingredients

Cupcake

  • 400g plain flour
  • 90g cocoa powder
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 200g soft light brown sugar
  • 360g caster sugar
  • 160g unsalted butter
  • 480ml whole milk
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Buttercream

  • 675g icing sugar
  • 225g unsalted butter
  • 60ml whole milk
  • Red, blue, yellow, peach gel food color

Chocolate Buttercream

  • 15g cocoa powder
  • 300g icing sugar
  • 110g unsalted butter
  • 1-2 tbsp milk
  • 45g dark chocolate, melted

Steps

Cupcake

  1. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and two sugars until creamy.
  2. In another bowl/jug, whisk together the milk, eggs and vanilla extract.
  3. Add ⅓ of the wet ingredients into the butter mixture and mix on slow/medium speed.
  4. Sift together the dry ingredients and mix in ½ of the dry ingredients.
  5. Scrape down your bowl and beat in ½ the remaining wet ingredients followed by the rest of the dry ingredients. Once combined pour in the remaining wet ingredients.
  6. Once the mixture is smooth, evenly divide it into the mini cupcake cases. You will need 35 red, 27 blue, 2 yellow, 43 peach and 31 brown. 138 in total.
  7. Bake in a preheated oven at 190ºC for 10-11 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. This will be longer if you are using larger cases.
  8. Repeat until all cupcakes are done. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Buttercream

  1. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and beat it into the butter.
  2. Once sandy, pour in the milk to combine.
  3. Beat for a good 5 minutes until the icing is paler in color and light and fluffy.
  4. Divide the buttercream into 4 bowls, allowing more buttercream for the peach and red colors since there are more cupcakes with those colors.
  5. Color each bowl of buttercream using a gel food color.

Chocolate Buttercream

  1. Beat the butter and sifted icing sugar together until sandy.
  2. Add the milk and continue beating.
  3. Sift over the cocoa powder and beat until well mixed.
  4. Pour in the melted and cooled chocolate and beat for a good 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
  5. Transfer all the colored buttercream and chocolate buttercream into individual piping bags and cut a small hole at the end, no piping tip needed.
  6. Pipe a small dollop onto each cupcake making sure to cover as much cupcake as possible.
  7. Arrange the cupcakes onto your chosen serving board following the pixel design. Enjoy!