Christmas Cupcakes

Stocking Cupcakes

To decorate some cinnamon cupcakes, I cut circles of red, white and green fondant with a scone cutter to get a crinkly edge. Using some recently bought Christmas cutters I cut out Christmas trees and stockings. I used apricot jam to stick the fondant to the cupcakes. To finish, I added small gold stars to the top of the Christmas trees.

 

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Christmas Florentines

Spooning on the Chocolate

Putting on the toppings

   









For these easy Christmas treats, I melted 200g of white chocolate and spooned it on baking paper in generous sized circles. I kept adding chocolate to the circles to make them thick. Then I scattered some of “Sainsbury’s Festive mix” over them. This included apple, orange and nuts. I then sprinkled gold sugar over them to finish. Next I melted 200g of milk chocolate and formed it into circles before covering them with “Sainsbury’s Black forest mix”. This was made up of white chocolate chunks, dried cherries and cherry flavoured apple. I chilled the Florentines until they were hard and then put them into presentation bags ready to give.

The milk chocolate florentines

Christmas Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

Freshly baked cupcakes

    I had recently used cherry icing to fill a chocolate sponge cake when I thought, why don’t I make a chocolate cherry cake? I combined the basic ingredients together and sifted in some cocoa powder before adding 1 tsp of cherry flavouring. Then, to add to the richness of the cake I added a small amount of red colouring paste to give it a unique, deep red colour. I baked the cakes in Christmas cupcakes cases for 20 minutes before leaving to cool.

   To make the wreath Cupcakes, I made a green and red buttercream and used white icing. I rolled the icing and cut thick circles out. Then I cut the top of the cakes flat and used a thin layer of black cherry jam to stick the fondant on. I used a star nozzle to pipe small stars around the edge of the cupcake to look like a wreath. To finish, I piped a thin red bow and some holly berries onto each cupcake.

My Wreath Cupcakes

Coffee and Walnut Cake

   I brought myself some walnut halves and decided to make a coffee and walnut sponge. I creamed sugar and margarine together before adding beaten eggs and coffee granules. I sifted flour and baking powder and added crushed 2oz of walnuts. When it was golden brown I took it out of the oven to cool. To decorate, I made a thick buttercream from margerine and icing sugar before adding vanilla essence. I filled and topped the sponge cake and to finish I topped it with walnuts halves.

The coffee and walnut sponge

Festive Doughnuts

Covering the doughnuts with sprinkles

     To decorate the tiny doughnuts, I made a thick glace icing and dipped one side of the doughnuts in the icing before decorating. I wanted to mimic American Doughnut boxes (the ones with 12 differently decorated doughnuts) so I used every type of Christmas sprinkle I own! Here’s the full list of what I used:






Mini Gold Stars

• Sugar snowflakes
• Mini gingerbread men
• Mini silver stars
• Red sugar
• Mini gold stars
• Red, green and white balls
• Sugar Christmas trees

  

  Sugar Christmas Trees

• Green sugar
• Gold sprinkles
• Chocolate crispy balls
• Gold, yellow and white sprinkles
• Popping candy




All of the doughnuts!

Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Snowflake piping

  Happy December! I decided to whip up a simple vanilla cake mix but added a generous amount of chocolate chips. I mixed half of the chips in the cake batter and gentle pushed the rest into the top of the cakes when they were in the cases. I did this because they have a habit of sinking to the bottom. Once the cakes were cooled I turned them upside-down and found that most of the chocolate had sunk to the bottom, but the chips placed on the top were scattered within the cake! To decorate I made a vanilla buttercream and piped stars in a snowflake formation on the top of the cakes before sprinkling with glitter.

Pretty Pink Gerbera

Shaping the flower

   Today I was at Claire’s and I was going to make flowers. I mixed pink colouring with white fondant icing and rolled it thinly to begin making a gerbera. Using a large plunger cutter I cut out 2 flowers and I laid one upon the other to show off all of the petals. Then I made a dish out of tin foil to shape the flower. Using a ball tool I put a large indent in the flower. Then I cut out two small flowers and rolled a small ball out of chocolate icing and put indents all over it to give it texture. I then wrapped the two flowers over the chocolate icing before putting this in the centre of the two large flowers. I finished by putting this flower on the top of a pink swirl of icing on a pink cupcake.

Splitting the inner petals

The Gerbera Cupcake