Easy Christmas Cupcakes (Recipe + Tutorial)

These cheerful easy Christmas cupcakes are adapted from my moist vanilla cupcakes recipe. They are very easy to make and produce most wonderfully moist and fluffy cupcakes.

The only additional ingredient I have in these Christmas cupcakes is the sprinkles. Not only are the sprinkles used to decorate the cupcakes, I have also added them in the cupcake batter.

And since these are for Christmas, I choose sprinkles in red and green. So my cupcakes have lovely specks of red and green all over, inside and out!

The Christmas cupcakes are decorated with a simple swirl of buttercream and bright red, fondant star toppers. Because I used butter in making the buttercream and did not include any artificial coloring, the frosting has a light tint of yellow to it. If you want absolutely white frosting, you can substitute the butter with shortening or you can tint your buttercream with white food coloring for white buttercream.

If you like, you can even substitute the buttercream with cream cheese frosting.

All in all, these cupcakes are much fun to make and so pleasantly full of holiday spirit and are absolutely perfect for the holiday season. Make them as sweet treats for your Christmas dessert table, or you can even make and sell these at your local bake sale for Christmas.

I have used a similar holiday party colors idea for my Christmas cheesecake, you might want to check them out too.

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How to Make and Decorate

Ingredients

The cupcakes

• Self-raising flour + baking powder + salt
• Butter
• Castor sugar
• Eggs
• Milk
• Vanilla essence

Vanilla Buttercream

• Butter
• Powdered sugar
• Vanilla essence
• Milk (optional)

Christmas cupcakes decoration

• Christmas themed sprinkles
• Red fondant for the star toppers

Mixing the batter

1. Start by preparing your cupcake liners by placing the paper liners into a cupcake tray. Set aside. Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Add butter and sugar into a large bowl and cream both until light and fluffy with an electric mixer on medium high speed for approximately 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl constantly.
2. Add in the eggs. Start with one egg, beat it well until you do not see any traces of egg before adding the next egg. Beat again until all traces of the eggs are no longer visible.
3. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt into the creamed mixture (wet ingredients) in 4 batches. Alternate the flour mixture with milk. Fold these in until well incorporated.
4. Next, add vanilla and sprinkles. Give the batter a quick mix until it's all smooth.
5. Scoop or spoon the batter into the prepared cupcake casings, and fill each casing to about two thirds full. The cupcakes will rise quite substantially when baking so it is important not to overfill the casings.
6. Bake the cupcakes until well risen and golden brown in color. Remove from the oven and let them cool in the tin for about 5 minutes before removing them onto a wire rack to cool. As soon as the cupcakes turn just slightly warm, cover them in a container and let them continue to cool down, covered. Let them cool completely before decorating.

Decorating the festive cupcakes

1. Prepare the red fondant star toppers.
2. Knead and roll some red fondant to about half a centimeter thickness. Use a star cutter to cut the stars out.
3. Insert a toothpick at the ends of each star. Let them set in a horizontal position until they are ready to go onto the cupcakes. These stars can also be made a few days in advance.  
4. To decorate the Christmas cupcakes, fit your piping bag with a large star tip (I used tip 1M) and fill it with buttercream. Pipe large stars onto each of the cooled cupcakes.
5. Sprinkle the top generously with Christmas themed sprinkles.
6. Attach one red fondant star right in the center of your buttercream stars (on top of each cupcake). And that completes the decoration on the Christmas treats. 

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Notes

These recipe notes will help ensure your Christmas cupcakes turn out successfully, right on the first attempt. These are pretty much the same as those that I have on my vanilla cupcakes page, and I am including them again here so that you don't have to go back and forth between the pages to read the notes. 

Best quality ingredients

• Use only the best quality and freshest ingredients. Good butter will give you good tasting cupcakes, and fresh baking powder and self raising flour will make sure your cupcakes rise well and are soft and airy.
• Also make sure that all your ingredients are at room temperature. That helps in making sure you have consistent results every single time. 

Cream the butter and sugar well

• These cupcakes are made using the creaming method, which means the sugar and butter are creamed until light and fluffy before the eggs and other ingredients go in.
• For these cupcakes to bake to a soft and fluffy texture, not only is the freshness of your flour and baking powder important, you must also make sure you cream the butter and sugar well.
• For this recipe, cream the butter and sugar for at least 3 minutes, scraping the bowl every now and then. Make sure your butter is soft enough to be cut into small cubes. If your butter is cold and hard, you would need to cream it for a longer time.
• Well creamed butter and sugar will produce soft and fluffy cupcakes so it is important not to cut this process short.

Fold in the flour into the batter

• This is another technique that will help produce soft cupcakes.  Add the flour into the cupcakes batter in 4 batches, alternating with the milk in 3 batches. Start and end the process with flour.
• You add the first part of flour to the batter, fold it in, then add 1 part of milk. Fold that in well. Add the second part of flour, fold in and continue the process with the remaining batches of milk and flour. That way, you will be able to mix the flour well into the batter and don't end up with uneven batter. 

Do not over mix the batter after adding flour 

• As mentioned above, flour should be folded into the batter to avoid over mixing. Which means, once the flour is well incorporated, stop mixing the batter.
• While the butter and sugar need to be well beaten, it is contrary for the flour and milk. Flour and milk are best folded into the batter by hand, but if you prefer to use a mixer, use it at its lowest speed and mix only to the extent the flour is all incorporated into the batter. Scrape your bowl constantly.
• Over mixing can cause the texture of your cupcakes to become hard. 

Make sure sprinkles are the last ingredient to go in

• And even then, mix them into the batter quickly until they are just incorporated. Mixing them for too long will cause the colors to bleed and get mixed up. Instead of bright red and green specks of batter, you will end up with greyish green specks in your cupcakes. 

Do not over bake

• The baking time for these cupcakes depends on their size and you will need to adjust it accordingly.
• The best way to check if the cupcakes are done is by inserting a toothpick or skewer in the center of the cupcakes a few minutes before the baking time is up. If there is no wet batter sticking to it, the cupcakes are ready (ideally, there should be a few soft crumbs sticking to the skewer). 

Customizing the frosting

• These Christmas cupcakes are decorated with a simple swirl of buttercream. Because I used butter in making the buttercream and did not include any artificial coloring, the frosting has a light tint of yellow to it.
• If you want absolutely white frosting, you can substitute the butter with shortening or you can tint your buttercream with white food coloring for white buttercream.
• Or, if you prefer to tint your buttercream to other colors like green frosting, you can always tint your buttercream with green food coloring.
• If you like, you can even substitute the buttercream with cream cheese frosting.
• You can also substitute the vanilla extract with peppermint extract for a minty batch of cupcakes.

Add sprinkles on before serving

• The sprinkles on these Christmas cupcakes tend to bleed into the buttercream if you leave them in warm temperature, so they are best added before serving.

Star fondant topper can be made in advance

• The star toppers for these Christmas cupcakes are made of fondant and can be made ahead of time. Simply store them in a dry place (do not refrigerate).

Storing the cupcakes

• These delicious cupcakes can last at room temperature for a good 4 to 5 days (provided they are handled without any traces of water/moisture). If you wish to keep them longer, store them in an airtight container the refrigerator and bring them to room temperature before serving.

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Like this cupcakes idea? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

• Christmas Tree Cupcakes - Cupcakes Decorated with Pretty Fondant Christmas Trees
• Sprinkles Cupcakes Decorating Ideas
• How to Color Sprinkles the Easy Way
• Pinata Cupcakes
• Christmas Cookies - Pretty Festive Cookies
• Fondant DIY - How to Make a Bow
• Homemade Fondant Recipe
• Marshmallow Fondant Recipe
• Reindeer Cupcakes - Adorable Christmas Cupcakes

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my easy recipe for easy Christmas cupcakes:

📖Recipe

And that's that. My easy cupcakes for Christmas.

Happy Baking 🙂