Baby Groot Cupcakes

I saw a few pictures online of Baby Groot cupcakes and I thought they were awesome. I'm not much of a baker but they were so cool so I thought I would try it myself and see if I could make them and in the process make it easier than other instructions I have seen online. To this end I used off the shelf baking mixes and a Dancing Groot Cookie cutter from Etsy.

Materials & tools:

1. Groot Cookie Cutter found Here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/210165071/dancing-bab...
2. Betty Crocker Gingerbread Cookie Mix

• 1 Egg
• 1 Stick Butter
• Water

3. Duncan Hines Black & White Cupcake Cake & Frosting Mix

• 2 Eggs
• 1/4 Cup oil
• 1 Stick butter
• Water

4. Mixer

5. Cupcake Baking Tin

6. Cupcake Baking Cups

7. Green Food Coloring

8. Pastry Bag tip

9. Parchment Paper

10. Cookie Sheet

11. Bowl

12. Rolling Pin with Cheater Strips

Optional :

1. Additional Frosting colors.

Follow directions on Gingerbread mix bag:
Heat Oven to 375 F

Stir 1 Stick butter, 1 Egg, 1 Tablespoon water and Mix in large bowl or stand mixer until soft dough forms.

Roll out dough to 1/4" onto lightly floured parchment paper using rolling pin with a built in spacer or cheater strips.

Generously flour Groot cookie cutter and cut as many as possible out of rolled dough. Re flour cookie cutter as necessary.

When no more will fit, peel up cookie dough from around the groot cookies(leave the groots in place as they are fragile until baked.) and recombine in bowl then roll out onto a new piece of floured parchment paper.

Transfer parchment paper with Groot Cookies onto a baking sheet and place in center of oven for 8-10 minutes as direct on the package.

While the first batch is baking roll out remaining dough and cut out additional Groot shapes.

When the first batch of cookies have baked, remove them from the oven and set them aside to cool.

Bake remainning cookies.

I was juggling a bit to much and missed pictures while I was preparing the batter.
Follow the recipe on the box:

1. Lower oven temp to 350 F
2. Blend cupcake mix, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup oil and 3/4 cup water in bowl at low medium speed for 2 min.
3. Place baking cups in cupcake tin and spoon batter evenly into 12 cups(1/2 full).
4. Bake 18-23 min.
5. Let Cool

Once cool cut a rectangular opening in the top of the cupcake just wider than the bottom of the Groot cookies, but thinner than where the cookies flair out. Don't hollow out the cupcake as the friction between the cake and the cookie will hold the cookie in place in the next step.

Make sure the cookies have cooled completely and are solid.

Insert the base of the Groot Cookies into the tops of the cupcakes all the way to the flaird out section on the cookie. The cookies should remain in place.

Mix frosting packet with 1 stick softened butter and 2 teaspoons water adding green food coloring until desired moss/grass color is achieved.

Once well blended fill included pastry bag and cut tip. Optional: Install frosting tip to achieve a "grassy" look.

Squeeze bag gently to apply frosting to the base of the Groot cookie and then frost the whole top of the cupcake.

It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to make these cupcakes and by using off the shelf mixes I was able to avoid the more difficult parts of the baking process while still resulting in an awesome product.

If I was going to do it again I would add a dot of black frosting to each of the eyes to make them stand out more, but otherwise I think this was a success.