A while ago, a friend of mine had the idea of making pipette cupcakes. It is probably the most brilliant science cooking idea I’ve tried, and I think these cupcakes are perfect for your next nerdy get together.
What are pipette cupcakes? Or rather, what is a pipette doing on a cupcake? 
Well, in addition to dispensing liquids in the lab, pipettes are actually really good at holding syrupy materials in them – no leaks. Then when you’re ready to eat the syrup, you can squirt the syrup into the center of the cupcake. My friend and I made these cupcakes for class when it was our time to bring food to our clinical skills class. And they turned out pretty well! At first we were worried syrup would leak out overnight, but turns out syrup gets stuck in the pipette pretty good and plugging the end with honey makes sure no syrup comes out. 
The cupcakes themselves (not including the honey in the pipette) are also vegan! It’s my first time making vegan cupcakes, and they taste amazingly like regular cupcakes. The frosting is vegan cream cheese frosting. As far as I could tell, it is pretty similar to regular cream cheese frosting! Just make sure you add lots of confectioner’s sugar to the vegan cream cheese to get it to firm up so your frosting doesn’t slide.
For sprinkles, we used a silvery sprinkle and a red one. Both looked pretty, but I especially liked the silver one because it had a light and translucent look that made it look like someone had sprinkled fairy dust over the cupcakes. These sprinkles are available at most grocery stores (I found them at Safeway) and make for a very dreamy looking cupcake.
The cupcake recipe is from Post Punk Kitchen‘s Vanilla Bean Cupcake recipe. The frosting recipe is adapted from Food.com‘s vegan cream cheese frosting recipe.
Pipette Cupcakes
Ingredients
Vegan vanilla cupcakes
- 2 cups unsweetened almond milk
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup canola oil
- 1.5 cup sugar
- 3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 vanilla beans split lengthwise and scraped
Vegan cream cheese frosting
- 1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine room temperature
- 1/2 cup vegan cream cheese (room temperature)
- 6 cups confectioner's sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Syrup
- Maple syrup
- Honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350, and line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
- Mix almond milk and vinegar and set aside for a few minutes to let curdle.
- Sift flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
- Beat almond milk, oil, sugar, vnilla extract, and vanilla bean together in a large bowl. Mix the dry mixture in with an electric mixer until there are no large bumps left.
- Fill cupcake liners 2/3 the way up and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool for at least 1 hour in the fridge.
- Make the cream cheese frosting. Cream together margarine and cream cheese until combined. Use a handheld mixture to continue mixing while adding the confectioner's sugar 1 cup at a time. Mix till smooth and creamy. Then mix in vanilla. Keep refrigerated till use.
- Using a large star tip, pipe cream cheese onto the cupcake tops. Start from the side of the cupcake, not too far to the edge (or else your frosting will slide off) and work toward the middle.
- Snip off pipette tips until you have a 2 inch tip just under the bulb.
- Draw up maple syrup, and right when you're about to finish drawing up syrup, switch to drawing up honey. This creates a plug so no syrup will leak out.
- Insert pipette into cupcake. Dust with sprinkles.
Hello! I'm Sarah and this is Gray. This site is filled with recipes for desserts, savories, and photos of everything delicious we ate when traveling. Enjoy!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Love this! Now, can you use a pipette with any cupcake recipe?
Hi Karina, you can use a pipette with any cupcake recipe. The pipette with the syrup is more for decoration, so any recipe works 🙂
Honey isn’t vegan.
Thank you for letting me know! You are correct! I didn’t know when I first made the post ~ it was my first vegan dessert 🙂
the cupcakes looks awesome. where can i buy the pipettes from and what are the size
Hi Stephanie,
You can buy these transfer pipettes on amazon (link here). I used the 1mL size transfer pipette (They usually come in 3mL and 1mL sizes). Good luck!
so creative! At first I thought the pipette bulbs were pills. But I guess that goes with your clinical theme 🙂
Another way to make vegan cream cheese frosting is with cashews. Allows it to be less processed than margarine-containing frosting 🙂
Elisa
Hi Elisa! Thanks for the tip about using cashews for cream cheese frosting! That’s really interesting and sounds much healthier 🙂 I’m not sure my blender can handle cashews, but I’ll let you know when I try the cashew frosting sometime in the future!
Hey Sarah,
These cupcakes look awesome, and I love the pipette idea!
Thanks Marta :0) I like the pipettes too.
What a creative idea for a cupcake! Also, your photos are gorgeous.
Thanks Grace!