The Paintbrush Trick You Need For Deliciously Clever 'Coffee Cup-Cakes'

Cupcakes are perfectly proportional individually sized cakes that aren't just fun to eat, but also fun to decorate. While you might add food coloring to the icing you pipe onto them or adorn them with sprinkles and edible flowers, a viral TikTok video takes cupcake decorating to the next level by making edible coffee cups as cupcake molds.

In a contribution to the Wilton baking school, baker and influencer @cakedbyrach demonstrates how she makes deliciously clever "coffee cup-cakes" with a paintbrush hack. She uses a paintbrush to apply white candy melts to paper cupcake molds in a standard cupcake baking pan. After pouring the melted candy into the molds, she uses the paintbrush to whisk the liquid candy up the sides of the molds with each brushstroke. After letting the candy melt set in the fridge, she repeats the process for a thicker edible cup to house a chocolate cupcake. After the second layer hardens, she peels the paper mold off of the edible cup and places a chocolate cupcake inside.

While other influencer foodies have made their own edible cups, this hack goes above and beyond by swapping simple piping or frosting with melted milk chocolate '"coffee." For an ultra-realistic touch, leftover white candy melts are piped over the chocolate as veritable "foam art." Using the same piping bag, @cakedbyrach pipes white hearts to harden in the fridge, cutting them in half to form the final piece de resistance: A coffee cup handle.

Melted chocolate or candy cups have been created in numerous social media videos and food blogs using kitchen brushes, but the paintbrush used in @cakedbyrach's video allows for more precision and control. You can use the paintbrush to customize the edible coffee cup by painting logos, phrases, shapes, or patterns with different colored candy melts. Just as you used the white candy melts to glue the edible handle to the cup, you can also use it to adhere sprinkles or edible glitter to these cups.

The piping bag for faux coffee foam is another unique tool that you can use to decorate the edible cups or even instead of the paintbrush to coat the cupcake molds in candy melts. If you'd rather use frosting instead of melted chocolate, the piping bag will also come in handy to dole out a layer of this rich chocolate frosting. You can also top the melted chocolate "coffee" topping with real whipped cream or this classic cream cheese frosting.

Candy cups aren't just for coffee-themed desserts, nor can they only hold cakes. You can use white, milk, or dark chocolate to make these cups, filling them with mousse, ice cream, pudding, or this no-bake strawberry cheesecake batter, to name a few other options.