Christmas Tree Cupcakes

These Christmas Tree Cupcakes are a simple and fun treat to make for your holiday baking this year.

Hi, hi, hi! (Or should it be HO, HO, HO?), I’m April from Mama Loves Food and I’m so excited The Crafting Chicks invited me to share this super fun Christmas Tree Cupcakes recipe with you today. Those of you who already know me are well aware of my #notabaker status so of course these are totally easy peasy to make.

If you’re #totallyabaker, then by all means I’d love for you to use a homemade cupcake batter, but for those of us with less than legendary cake baking status, I’m here to tell you go ahead and use a box mix! It’s okay! You’re still super mom. Or dad. Or person. Probably not cat or dog, though. Since the fun in this recipe is the cute Christmas tree icing topper, any flavor cake is fine. We went with a plain vanilla for this go-round, but I’m thinking probably White Chocolate & Peppermint Cupcakes next time!

There are two simple tricks to making your icing stand up tall (and stay up tall!) like a Christmas tree. I used extra powdered (confectioners) sugar in the icing (yes, yes, I used canned icing), and we put a big old blog of icing in the middle of the cupcake to give the tree support before we started piping the pretty swirl. I chose a large round piping tip for our trees, but if you could also use a large star tip!

For our tree toppers, I piped some yellow candy melts into a star shape on parchment paper and then let them harden in the fridge for a couple minutes. You could do this, or even make it easy and add a yellow M&M to the top! The “snow” is just extra confectioners sugar sifted over the cupcakes. Fair warning though, if you sift the sugar onto the cupcakes before you let the icing set, it will disappear due to the surface moisture. Don’t ask me how I know. Ha!

I hope you enjoy making these cupcakes as much we did! I’d love to see you over at Mama Loves Food sometime, and make sure to tune in for our twice weekly LIVE cooking show at the Mama Loves Food Facebook Page! If you’re on social media you can find us at MommyNamedApril on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat too!

Oh Christmas Tree Cupcakes, Ingredients:

1 box cake mix, batter prepared per package instructions.
2 cans vanilla or white icing
green food coloring
2 – 4 cups powdered/confectioners sugar
optional: yellow candy or candy melts for tree toppers, additional powdered sugar for snow

Oh Christmas Tree Cupcakes, Directions:

Fill cupcake wrappers about halfway full (we don’t want rounded tops as it will make piping more difficult), and bake according to package directions. Allow cupcakes to cool completely.
In a large bowl combine icing, green food coloring, and up to 4 cups of confectioners sugar with an electric mixer. Add confectioners sugar one cup at a time until you reach desired consistency.
Pop icing into the fridge for 10 – 15 minutes to stiffen a bit, then add icing to a piping bag with a large round tip or large star tip.
Pipe a tall blob of icing into the middle of each cupcake (leaving enough room around the edge for the base of your tree), then pipe a spiral swirl around each blob into a tree shape.
Allow the icing to set, then top with a yellow candy and some confectioners snow.
Enjoy!