These adorable Touchdown Cupcakes are perfect for football season!
Table of Contents
Why You Will Love This Recipe
These Touchdown Cupcakes are so perfect for a game day watch party dessert. Easily decorate boxed cupcakes or even store bought!
Yes, there are a lot of notes, to help you out. But this is really a very simple thing to do!
Ingredient Options
Full recipe quantities and details can be found in the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Let’s talk about the options you have for the ingredients with this football cupcakes dessert!
Cupcakes – you can bake any flavor of cupcake that you want – or buy them! We are assuming one box of cake mix which is approximately 16 cupcakes (give or take depending on how much you fill each one, and honestly shrinkflation these days….)
Frosting – if you have or find green icing, great! Otherwise, buy a white colored frosting (flavor of your choice) and use green gel food colorings to make them colored. You can go for a dark green, brighter green or both! I recommend two tubs of icing for a box of cupcake mix.
Sprinkles – I like to use the brown jimmies because it matches with colors, kind of like dirt. But you can use any sprinkles, including team colors!
Instructions
Work on melting your candy melts. And set up your station with the parchment paper, snapped pretzels (and some intact).
Use one pretzel as the long horizontal bar. Snap some pretzels in half, with a half for each side post, and also a half for the post that sticks in the ground.
Start with the long horizontal bar. Coat it completely (as much as you can) in yellow candy melts. Tap off the excess as much as you can. Lay it on the parchment horizontally.
Repeat the coating process with the side posts and bottom post. As each one is done, lay against the horizontal post in the appropriate position. Left and right goalposts should have rounded points facing up and rough, broken edges connecting to the horizontal bar.
Repeat for all goalposts as needed.
If using the chocolate chip footballs, if you want any going “through” the goalposts, it is a good time to add them when the pretzels are still wet. Otherwise you can add them later with a little more candy melt to stick in place.
Let dry COMPLETELY. Then gently peel off the parchment and place one into each frosted cupcake.
Use a sharp knife to trim off blobs of yellow candies that have melted and are affecting your goalpost shape. They will not be perfect – which is fine! But cleaning up big blobs will help 🙂
CAREFULLY pull them up from parchment when dry (if they break, it is fine, see below) and place one in each cupcake. (Not all cupcakes NEED a goalpost – see below!).
Add sprinkles before or after goalposts – doesn’t matter!
TIPS!!!
It took me 6 minutes to coat and assemble 4 goalposts with all ingredients ready.
For every 12 goal posts, you will need 1/2 cup of yellow candy melts which is 3 ounces in weight. Ish.
You WILL have pretzel pieces that break weird, so you will need a few more than what is listed.
When assembling the posts and sticking them together after being coated in yellow, put the rounded end of the pretzel up as the top ends of the posts. If it is the rugged end, it looks more unfinished. It does not matter which way the pretzel faces for the post that sticks into the cupcake.
Gently scrape the bottom side of pretzels after coating (the side that will touch parchment paper) to minimize pooling and cleanup later.
Let the goalposts dry COMPLETELY before lifting each one up. Place each goalpost on a frosted cupcake.
Add sprinkles either before or after the goalposts as desired!
If you are using the Nestle football chips, you can stick them onto the goalposts by adding a small amount of yellow candy melt on the back of them and letting them dry in place on the goal post, as you see in the pictures.
Use extra melted yellow candy melts for any repairs that need to happen as you assemble the cupcakes. I had a couple that broke where they joined because they were not well adhered together. Easy fix!
Not every cupcake HAS to have a goalpost. You can leave some with just sprinkles or even some football cookies.
More Game Day Recipes
Game Day Recipes
Touchdown Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 12 cupcakes
- 2 tubs vanilla frosting or any white frosting (or use an already green frosting!)
- green food gel coloring dark, or light, or both (half and half like the pictures!)
- 18 mini pretzel sticks
- 1/2 cup yellow candy melts (3 ounces weight, see notes)
- 1/3 cup brown sprinkles
- 1/3 cup football chocolate chips see note 1
Instructions
Cupcake and Frosting Prep
- If making cupcakes, bake them as per recipe/box instructions.
- If you bought white frosting, add dark or light green gel coloring to each until you get the frosting color(s) you want. Set aside. (See noted about gel vs liquid coloring – use gel).
Goalpost Assembly
- Add candy melts to a microwave safe bowl as per package directions. Stir frequently to encourage melting.
- Have your goalpost making station ready to go. Snap pretzels in half until you have 3 acceptable halves for each goalpost, plus one regular long pretzel for each goalpost you need. Have parchment paper on a baking sheet for assembly. The baking sheet makes it easy to move, but is optional.
- Start with the long horizontal bar. Coat it completely (as much as you can) in yellow candy melts. Tap off the excess as much as you can. Lay it on the parchment horizontally.
- Repeat the coating process with the side posts and bottom post. As each one is done, lay against the horizontal post in the appropriate position. Left and right goalposts should have rounded points facing up and rough, broken edges connecting to the horizontal bar.
- Repeat for all goalposts as needed.If using the chocolate chip footballs, if you want any going "through" the goalposts, it is a good time to add them when the pretzels are still wet. Otherwise you can add them later with a little more candy melt to stick in place.
Final Assembly
- Let dry COMPLETELY. Then gently peel off the parchment and place one into each frosted cupcake.
- Decorate each cupcake with sprinkles.
- Use a sharp knife, if/as needed, to trim off blobs of yellow candies that have pooled off of the posts and onto the parchment and are affecting your goalpost shape. They will not be perfect – which is fine! But cleaning up big blobs will help 🙂
- Very gently, once dried, peel the goalposts off of the parchment. If they break, use some more melted candy melts to re-adhere and let dry again. Place a goal post in each cupcake. If not done already, add football sprinkles/chocolate chips to the cupcakes and/or goalposts. If putting up on the posts like the ball is going through, use some melted candy melts on the back of the football to adhere in place.
Notes
- You can find Nestle chocolate chips (morsels) shaped as footballs in your baking section of the grocery store and online.
- If you cannot find the Nestle football morsels, you can also use football sprinkles!
- Do not add coloring to white chocolate. White chocolate is finicky and really does not like liquid. Save yourself the headache. An alternative that does work is using white almond bark and adding coloring to it.
- Gel food coloring is better than liquid (“regular”) because it is more concentrated. So you get better color from less liquid. Too much liquid means it could have issues setting/drying weirdly.
