How To Make Holiday Cupcakes

How To Make Holiday Cupcakes- with one cupcake recipe and one frosting recipe!

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You have a gift list a mile long. Even more presents to wrap. A tree to decorate. Work parties. Cards to mail. It’s never ending. And you said you would bring dessert for that holiday party. 

Don’t worry.  I’ll show you how to make these 4 holiday cupcakes from one cupcake recipe and one frosting recipe. These use my easy one bowl chocolate cupcake recipe as well!

I’ll break down what you need for each, so you can make a quick run to the grocery store.  Now I have to be honest none of these ideas were my own. I searched around on Pinterest for different holiday cupcakes that I thought were simple but still impressive. What’s great about these cupcakes is they all use my favorite chocolate cupcakes and favorite vanilla buttercream frosting– just jazzed up a bit!

So let’s breakdown each cupcake shall we?

Holiday Cupcake #1: The String of Lights Cupcake

To make this holiday cupcake you need:

• M&M’s (I used regular sized candies, but you could also use the mini M&M’s)
• Black writing gel. I found the gel in the baking aisle with the cake decorating items. 
• Open circle Ateco tip #808. 

After you pipe on the frosting, then use the black gel to pipe on a black string. Then simply stick the M&M’s in around the black string! That’s it! 

Holiday Cupcake #2- The Christmas Tree Cupcake

For this holiday cupcake you will need: 

• Green Frosting
• Red Colored Candies
• Ateco Tip #847

For this holiday cupcake you will need to tint your vanilla buttercream green. After you pipe your frosting on, simply stick the red chocolate drops around your tree.  For the I found mine in the cake decorating section in the baking aisle. Again you could use M&M’s if you can’t find these red chocolate drops. I then used a yellow M&M for the top of the tree to be the star! I hate to play favorites, but I think this cupcake was my favorite!

 

Holiday Cupcake #3: Santa Hat

For this Holiday Cupcake You Will Need:

• Red Food Coloring
• Miniature Marshmallows
• Ateco Tip #808

With this holiday cupcake, you will need to tint your buttercream frosting red. You could use either McCormick Red Food Coloring which is a great option you can find in your grocery store or Wilton Christmas Icing Color. After you pipe your frosting on, then simply place miniature marshmallows around the base and one on top for the hat!

Cupcake #4: Snowman Cupcake

To Make This Holiday Cupcake You Will Need:

• Black Sugar Pearls or Mini Chocolate Chips
• Coconut or Sparkling Sugar
• Orange Sprinkle or Orange Gel Tube

For this holiday cupcake you have some options to achieve the adorable snowman face. First you want to simply pipe or spread frosting onto your cupcake then dip the top of the cupcake in coconut (or you could also use sparkling sugar. For the eyes and snowman smile I used black sprinkles, but mini chocolate chips also work well! For the nose, you could draw the the nose on with a gel or again just use a simple orange sprinkle if you have it!

And there you go! Four fun and festive holiday cupcakes that only require one cupcake recipe and one frosting recipe! I actually brought these cupcakes to a work holiday party and they were oohed and ahhed over – then devoured of course. Your family and friends will be so impressed with these cupcakes I am sure of it 🙂 So what are you waiting for go make some cupcakes!

If you like these holiday cupcakes, let me know and leave me a comment!

Until next time, happy baking!