Christmas Tree Cupcakes

5 from 13 votes

These Christmas tree cupcakes not only make pretty treats, they're great for gifting too! Here's my full tutorial for these cute cupcakes!

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

Decorating time2

Total Time2 40

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: cupcakes

Calories: 227.6kcal

Preheat oven to 170°Celsius. Prepare cupcake liners.
Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, for approximately 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl constantly.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt into the creamed mixture in 4 batches, alternating each batch with milk. Start and end with the flour. Mix until the flour is well incorporated.
Finally, fold in the vanilla extract.
Pour batter into prepared cupcake liners and bake for 20 minutes, until the cupcakes are well risen and have turned golden brown.
Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let them cool in the tin for 5 minutes before removing them onto a wire rack to cool further.
Keep the cupcakes covered as soon as they turn warm and let them continue to cool down, covered.
Frost the cupcakes only when they have completely cooled down.

If the cupcakes are domed, level them with a knife before applying buttercream.
To make the buttercream, beat butter and powdered sugar until fluffy.
Add vanilla extract and continue beating until the buttercream is all light and fluffy. Add milk if it appears too stiff.
Use a palette knife to spread a thin layer of buttercream on top of each cupcakes.

The tree template can be prepared in advance.
You can draw this free hand or trace it out from other sources. Make sure the template is resized to fit the top of your cupcake.

Knead and roll white fondant to about ⅛ inches thick. Cut out medium-sized white round cutouts using a scalloped round cutter. Make sure the size of the circles match the diameter of your cupcake tops so that the fondant covers your cupcakes adequately.

Next, use the cut-out Christmas tree template and trace the outline onto the white fondant backgrounds. In tracing the Christmas tree, suffice if you trace just the tree and not its trunk. Use a needle tool, a skewer or a toothpick to do the tracing.

Next, form the tree trunk. Roll some chocolate fondant into thin strips and coil them up as shown. Use 2 skewers to press the sides and turn them into rectangle coils.
Attach shortening to the bottom of the tree outline and attach the trunk to it.

Next, knead some green fondant, roll it into a sausage and put it into the extruder tool that is fitted with the smallest round-holed disc. Piped out long strips of the green fondant, and guide the strips to form outlines on the traced Christmas trees.

With the outlines done, it's time to 'fill' the trees up. Again, using the fondant extruder tool, pipe out strips of fondant, but this time, in much shorter lengths (need not be the same length). Roll the ends to make them slightly pointy and coil them up in various sizes.
Fill the Christmas trees up with these fondant coils (make sure you apply a coat of shortening first so that the coils stick to the white fondant).
Fill up any gaps between the coils with tiny green fondant balls (shaped by hand).

Finally, add the sprinkles to the Christmas tree cupcake toppers in random order.
To make sure the sprinkles stay in place on the fondant Christmas trees, use a very light brush of fondant glue. Too much glue can smear the color on the sprinkles so use as a little as possible.

The tree shape template can be prepared in advance. And you can start making your cupcakes toppers while the cupcakes are baking.
When drawing the template, make sure the size fits the cupcakes.
If you do not have the extruder tool, you can also roll the fondant with your hands.