St. Patrick’s Day Pot of Gold Cupcakes
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Feeling lucky? Try these Pot of Gold Cupcakes! A sweet cereal milk cupcake, frosted with a light and fluffy marshmallow buttercream. Truly the perfect St. Patrick’s Day treat!
St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and what better way to celebrate than with a batch of festive and delicious cupcakes? These Pot of Gold Cupcakes are not only super cute but also incredibly flavorful. The secret ingredient? Cereal milk! By infusing the milk with sweet and crunchy lucky charms cereal, you’ll add an extra layer of flavor to the cupcakes that will leave everyone wanting more!
But, that’s not all. Each cupcake is topped with a generous swirl of marshmallow buttercream that brings a touch of sweet creaminess to every bite. And of course, no St. Patrick’s Day cupcake would be complete without a sprinkling of gold and rainbow-colored toppings to bring the theme to life!
What Is Cereal Milk And How Do I Make It?
Cereal milk is – well, what’s leftover after a bowl of cereal! That sweet, flavored milk that tastes just like your bowl of cereal. Luckily, making it is just as easy as making your morning cereal. Just combine your cereal with milk and let it sit!
From there, we are going to strain out the soggy cereal and what’s left is cereal milk that’s ready to be enjoyed (or baked with😉)!
What Do I Need To Make Cupcakes For St. Patrick’s Day?
When developing this recipe, we wanted to keep this recipe as simple as possible. So, we took our reader-favorite, classic cupcake recipe and gave it a few tweaks to make it more fun! Here’s what your need:
- Lucky Charms Cereal – This sweet, nostalgic cereal is what adds the flavor to the milk.
- Whole Milk – The higher fat content in whole milk is ideal for helping to tenderize these cupcakes as well as contributing to the structure and helping keep it moist.
- All Purpose Flour – This is the structural backbone of the cupcakes, providing the framework that holds everything together.
- Baking Powder – This key leavening agent will help the cupcakes rise, making them light and fluffy.
- Salt – Just a bit of salt balances the sweetness and enhances the other flavors in the cupcake.
- Unsalted Butter – Butter adds richness, a tender crumb, and delicious buttery flavor. Using unsalted butter allows us to control the amount of salt in the recipe.
- Granulated Sugar – The main sweetener for the cupcakes, granulated sugar also contributes to the texture.
- Eggs – Eggs bind ingredients together, create structure, and add moisture for a perfectly tender cupcake.
- Vanilla Extract – This classic flavor gives a warm, familiar sweetness to the cupcakes and complements the cereal milk perfectly.
Now, We Make The Batter
The first thing to do is the cereal milk, as the cereal has to sit for 15-30 minutes. Once that’s made, we start the batter! Below, we’ve listed a simple overview on how to make it.
- Whisk dry ingredients. This is the flour, leavening, and salt.
- Beat butter and sugar. The butter needs to be light and fluffy.
- Add eggs. For the best results, beat the eggs in one at a time, making sure to beat well in-between each addition. Then, beat until light and fluffy.
- Mix in dry ingredients alternately with milk. Be sure to always begin and end with your dry ingredients! Then, stir in the vanilla…and voilà! Your cupcake batter is ready to bake.
⊹ Tip For Success! ⊹
Remember to set your butter and eggs out ahead of time to allow them to come to room temperature before mixing. This will make the ingredients mix MUCH better than if you used cold ingredients.
Perfecting The Bake Time Is Crucial
The one thing I think we can all agree on is that nobody likes dry, over-baked cupcakes. But under-baked cupcakes can be just as bad, if not worse! Opening the oven door too soon could also be disastrous. With so many elements that could go wrong, we thoroughly tested how these cupcakes bake to ensure recipe success.
It might sound a little over-the-top, but perfecting the bake time on a recipe is just as crucial as having the perfect batter. So, here is what we’ve learned over the years:
- Size matters. The amount of batter in each liner really does matter. 2/3rds full and it’s pretty flat and a little boring. All the way to the edge is WAY too much and can cause the batter to overflow and bake together. The perfect amount about is 3/4 full. Luckily, there’s an easy way to ensure each cupcake is the right size! A large cookie scoop is 3 Tablespoons, which fills each liner 3/4 of the way full every single time.
- Oven temperature can make or break this recipe. An oven that runs hot can cause the cupcakes to burn on the exterior and not cook completely inside. An oven that runs cold can cause your cupcakes to turn out flat, as well as being dense and heavy and potentially undercooked. The best way to avoid this? An oven thermometer! By using an oven thermometer, you can learn how your oven runs and adjust the temperature accordingly!
- Electric ovens and gas ovens bake differently. Over the years, we have learned this the hard way! We used to bake only in gas ovens, but quickly learned when we moved that that’s not always an option. So, most recipes on our site are now baked in an electric oven. (There was a bit of a learning curve!😂) As we’ve learned, electric ovens hold their temperature more consistently resulting in a more even bake. Gas doesn’t always heat as evenly without 2-3 hours of preheating time, so we only bake things in the gas oven that benefit from the moisture level created by the gas heat.
With these things in mind, we found that these cupcakes are perfectly baked at 22 minutes!
Easy Marshmallow Buttercream
This recipe is like a cheater’s Italian Buttercream! So, instead of making meringue, we’re gonna be using marshmallow fluff. So, here’s what you need for the frosting and decoration:
- Salted Butter – Provides richness, a delightful melt-in-your-mouth texture, and a hint of saltiness to balance the sweetness of the frosting.
- Powdered Sugar – The primary source of sweetness in the frosting, powdered sugar also thickens the mixture and creates that classic fluffy buttercream
- Heavy Cream – This adds richness and a silky smooth consistency to the frosting. The higher fat content of heavy cream enables it to hold peaks which makes the frosting fluffier and more stable.
- Vanilla Extract – A classic addition to frostings, vanilla adds a warm, familiar undertone that complements the other ingredients perfectly.
- Marshmallow Fluff – This is the star ingredient that gives the frosting its unique marshmallowy flavor and a super light and airy texture. It’s also the key to that “cheater’s” Italian buttercream method!
- Green Food Coloring – Makes this frosting the perfect color to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
- Candy – We used Airheads Extremes to create the rainbows on top of the cupcakes.
- Gold Sprinkles – We used sugar pearls (small edible round beads) to look like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Now that you’ve gathered your ingredients, beat the butter and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add heavy cream, vanilla, and marshmallow and beat until light and fluffy. Mix in the food coloring.
⊹ Decorating Tip ⊹
If you want to pipe a few clouds to go around the edges of your rainbow, spoon out about ⅛ cup of the frosting before you add the food dye.
It’s Time For The Fun Part…Decoration!
Now that the frosting is made, we can move onto the best part. Fill a piping bag fitted with your desired tip (I used an 805 Plain Tube) and pipe! I swirled the frosting to create a bit of a “well” like shape, as I wanted my cupcakes to look reminiscent of a pot of gold. From there, you can decorate them however you like.
I added gold sprinkles to each cupcake before cutting the rainbow candies in half. Then, I pushed each end into the frosting over my sprinkles and piped small dots of white frosting around each end of the candy! It’s simple, but very effective! 🌈 ✨
✳ Recipe FAQ’s
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When you make these St. Patrick’s Day Pot of Gold Cupcakes, leave a comment down below! We love hearing from you and answering any questions you might have! Also, be sure to tag us on social media and hashtag it #BakersTable.
Happy baking!
x, Caylie
St. Patrick’s Day Pot of Gold Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cereal Milk
- 1 cup Lucky Charms cereal
- 1½ cups whole milk
Cupcakes
- 1¾ cups all purpose flour*
- 1¾ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- ⅞ cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅞ cup cereal milk
Frosting
- 1½ cups salted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups marshmallow fluff
- ¼ teaspoon green food coloring, optional
For Decoration
- Airheads Extremes
- Gold Sprinkles
Instructions
Cereal Milk
- Combine cereal and milk in a medium bowl.
- Let sit for at least 30 minutes.
- Strain out cereal and discard.
Cupcakes
- Heat oven to 350℉.
- Line muffin tins with paper liners, or spray with baking spray. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.
- With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.
- Continue beating until light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes.
- Add cereal milk alternately with flour mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
- Stir in vanilla.
- Use a 3 Tablespoon scoop to portion batter into prepared pans. Alternately, fill muffin cups 3/4 full.
- Bake for 22 minutes, or until cooked through.
Frosting
- Combine butter and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the flat beater.
- Beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides as necessary.
- Add heavy cream, vanilla, and marshmallow.
- Beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Beat in food coloring.
Assembly
- Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes.
- Decorate as described in the above post, or as desired.
Notes + Tips!
- Room temperature is about 70℉.
- Use an oven thermometer to ensure accurate cooking temperatures.
- To substitute salted butter for the unsalted in the cupcakes, reduce salt to 1/4 teaspoon.
To substitute unsalted butter for the salted in the frosting, add 3/8 teaspoon salt.
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Nutrition
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
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