Recently Updated! These Fun Father’s Day Cupcakes are the perfect treat to celebrate dad! Decorated to look like grills, they are super cute and delicious!
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- FUN – The dad in your life will get a total KICK out of these cupcakes! We make the caramel look like a pork chops on the grill! And hot tamales are the hotdogs. The gumdrops are Shish Kabobs!
- EASY – We use a store bought cake mix to make our cupcakes. But you can use your own homemade recipe if you want. From there, it just a couple of simple steps to decorate them. We will walk you through the whole process.
Fathers Day Cupcakes
I have made these BBQ Grill Cupcakes as brownies and as chocolate cupcakes. Either way, they turn out yummy and everyone loves them! I found these in a magazine a few years ago and I just had to make them for Father’s Day, but they would be perfect for a summer BBQ or party as well! Here is what you’ll need to get started:
- CHOCOLATE CAKE MIX (and all ingredients to make it: eggs, oil, etc…) – You can use any kind of cake mix you’d like. Vanilla, White, Lemon or confetti.
- BLACK ICING – I used the tube of black from Wilton. But you can use whatever brand you want.
- ORANGE DECORATING SUGAR – These will be your “hot coals”.
- CARAMEL CREAMS – Cut them in half to make them look like pork chops on the grills!
- GUM DROPS – We used red, yellow and orange gumdrops to look like the shish-kabobs.
- HOT TAMALES CANDIES – Hotdogs!
Other Fun Cupcake Toppings
Making the candy food was my favorite part. I love turning food into unexpected things and this was a fun one! After making the caramel pork chops, hot dogs, and kabobs, I started thinking about all the other candy food I could make. The caramels could be great hamburgers or cheeseburgers. You could get some gummy fish to put grill marks on. The ideas keep flowing!
You can also, frankly, just get some fondant of various colors (brown for hamburger patties, yellow for cheese, bacon, etc.) And then you can shape them into whatever your dad likes to grill!
How To Make Father’s Day Grill Cupcakes
- Place cupcake liners (I used the silver ones to help mimic a grill) in a cupcake pan, and fill them two-thirds full of your favorite brownie batter or chocolate cake batter.
- Bake according to the recipe directions.
- Sprinkle with orange decorators sugar and then let cool completely to room temperature.
- Attach a round size 3 tip onto your tube of black icing. Or you can simply put your black icing into a sandwich bag and snip off the corner.
- Pipe grate lines onto each brownie and let them sit for 20 minutes.
- Prepare the grill food as instructed below and press it in place atop each brownie:
- Kebabs = A caramel cream and red, yellow, and green gumdrops, cut into small pieces + toothpick skewers
- Porkchop = one-half of a caramel cream, molded with fingers + black food coloring, applied with a toothpick
- Hot dogs = Hot Tamales candies + black food coloring, applied with a toothpick
Notes, Tips and FAQs
- KID FRIENDLY RECIPE – This is a great dessert recipe for the kids to help out on. It could be a great gift from the little ones!
- FROSTING – We didn’t put any frosting on these cupcakes, but you certainly could. Maybe use orange frosting to make it look more like coals under the grill.
Items To Help With This Recipe
These adorable cupcakes would be perfect for cookouts, July 4th, Memorial Day, Labor Day or for a special someone on their birthday.
Happy Father’s Day!
BBQ Grill Cupcakes
Ingredients
- Brownie batter
- Black icing I used the tube of black from Wilton, so simple
- Orange decorators sugar
- Caramel Creams
- Red yellow, and green gumdrops
- Hot Tamales candies
Instructions
- Place cupcake liners (I used the silver ones to help mimic a grill) in a cupcake pan, and fill them two-thirds full of your favorite brownie batter, then bake according to the recipe directions. Let the brownies cool completely.Attach a round size 3 tip onto your tube of black icing. Or you can simply put your black icing into a sandwich bag and snip off the corner. Pipe grate lines onto each brownie and let them sit for 20 minutes. Add embers with a sprinkle of orange sugar. Prepare the grill food as instructed below and press it in place atop each brownie:
Kebabs = A caramel cream and red, yellow, and green gumdrops, cut into small pieces + toothpick skewers
Porkchop = one-half of a caramel cream, molded with fingers + black food coloring, applied with a toothpick
Hot dogs = Hot Tamales candies + black food coloring, applied with a toothpick
- I debated about using the Swedish fish on top as well, but my husband doesn't ever grill out fish so I decided to leave them off, you can certainly add them if you would like to.
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Sharing of this recipe is encouraged and appreciated. Copying of full recipe to any social media is prohibited.
Louise says
Hey Kathy, what a great set of instructions for making those cute cupcakes.
Kathy says
Thanks Louise, they were a lot of fun to make!
Bri @ Ramblings of a Southern Mama says
These are so stikin’ cute! SR loves to grill so these would be perfect for Father’s Day! Thanks for these instructions 🙂
Nichol says
These are fabulous! I love this so creative:)
Lindsay says
Oh my gosh! Those are so stinking cute!!!! I might just have to try that!
Cat Davis says
That is genius, they really look like they were grilled.
Henrietta says
I’ve never seen this idea before! I love it, so cute!
Candace says
Those are really cute!
Donna B. says
HAHA, what a cute idea!
erin says
Those came out super cute.
Jen says
Awesome…..stumbled.
Jennifer S says
I love those! I’ll have to try these later this summer!
Jenn says
I always come across cute recipes like this when I am trying to watch my sugar intake. LOL They look SO GOOD!
Karen says
How cute they are! Gonna have to steal this idea for sure.
Becca @ Mama B says
These are incredible!
Jillian Too says
Wow! They are so adorable!
Mom says
Thank you! They were a lot of fun to make!