Christmas Winter Wonderland treats: Cupcakes + How to make christmas tree cupcakes

Oh dear, oh Lord, I have been really really busy the last 1.5 weeks.
My kitchen was my “only friend” 24/7, days and nights I have been preparing christmas treats for a christmas candy bar (sweet table) we set up yesterday in a café here in Hannover. Hannover’s christmas market starts today so the goal was to have everything done by the time it starts, and luckily my friend Sandra, the owner of the café, and me, made it =)
Before I show photos of the whole candy bar itself in a couple of days, I wanted to show the photos I have taken at home first.
I have to be honest here, it took hours and my memory card of my camera was full, yes full; I have taken 1.149 photos, 3gb to be exact. Crazy me!
For all newbies in photography: to me, it is very important to take as many photos as possible, this way you can sort the best ones out easily. You can always delete too many photos. But you won’t be happy if you have let’s say 30 photos and none of them are good. Let’s say you have a beautiful cupcake, you take two or three photos, then go on to the next treat. But what you did not see on the little camera display, that the photo is sort of blurry. This is really disappointing when you are sitting in front of your computer and want to begin to upload photos to flickr and start blogging about them, but your photos are blurry, or the lighting is not perfect at all. I am very ambitious when it comes to photos, even though I am not perfect at all, but I want to get the best result with my little equipment I have.
So my suggestion is, you do not have to be as crazy as me, taking thousands of photos, oh dear please don’t haha. I am glad I am mostly by myself when I have photoshoots because it would be probably annoying for others to hear the sound of the camera shutter for hours and hours. :-)

Anyway, I have never really made such time-consuming themed cupcakes before, so I am even happier to see the outcome turned out so well.
You are about to see candy cane cupcakes, christmas tree gift cupcakes (inspired by Bakerella) and the easy and advanced version of christmas tree cupcakes. Enjoy.

Please read on to see more photos and to get the recipe and how to for the “Easy Christmas Cupcakes” and “advanced” version.

Before I start with recipe, here are the winter wonderland cuppies for you guys:

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• Prep Time 10 minutes
• Baking Time 12-15 minutes
• Difficulty Easy
• Servings
  

For the Vanilla Cupcakes:

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vinegar
• Bake your favourite cupcake recipe or use the one below, which is my absolute favourite vanilla cupcake recipe:
• 1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees / 180 G Celsius and prepare your Cupcake Pan with cupcake liners.
• 2. Pour together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, set aside.
• 3. Add 1/2 teaspoon vinegar to the milk and set aside for about 3-5 minutes.
• 4. In another bowl, add the 2 eggs and mix with handmixer or stand mixer. Now pour in the sugar and continue to mix for a good minute.
• 5. Now add vanilla extract and vegetable oil and mix.
• 6. On low speed, add half of flour mixture, beat, then add half of milk mixture. Repeat until everything is combined and well mixed. Scrape down sides of the bowl too.
• 7. Now pour the rather thin batter into your cupcake pan and fill up the cupcake liners 3/4 full.
• 7. Bake in your preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes, use a toothpick, stick in the center of the cupcake, if it comes out clean, the cupcakes are done.
• 8. Let cupcakes cool for a couple of minutes before you remove them from the pan. Let cool completely on a plate or wire rack.
• 9. When completely cooled, you can start frosting them.

For the creamcheese FROSTING: (12 cupcakes)

• 2 cups (230 grams) confectioners sugar (powdered sugar), sifted
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1-2 packages creamcheese
• Ateco Closed Star pastry tip (848)
• green food coloring
• piping bags
• Flaked shreddened coconut (for snow)
• jumbo stars sprinkles or big heart candy sprinkles for the top of the tree cupcake
• christmas confetti sprinkles or any other sprinkles, for ornaments, jumbo heart sprinkles for the top
• 1. In a stand mixer, or with a handmixer, cream the butter until smooth and well blended.
• 2. Add the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed, gradually beat in the sugar.
• 3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the creamcheese and beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes).
• 4. Add a little more creamcheese or sugar, if needed.
• 5. Tint 3/4 of the the frosting with green food coloring Leave the rest untined and spread it on each cupcake with a small spatula (for the “snow” underneath the christmas tree which comes next) and sprinkle shreddened coconut on top. Set aside.
• 6. Fill up your piping bag with green frosting and use an Ateco Closed Star pastry tip (that is what I used) and start piping your christmas tree on the snowy cupcake, pipe the frosting onto the cupcake starting from the outside of the cupcake and as you pipe up, working into the centre to create the christmas tree look.
• 7. Decorate with stars, christmas confetti sprinkles, or any other sprinkles, for ornaments.

This is the outcome.



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Here are the instructions for the advanced christmas tree cupcakes:



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• 1. Prepare your frosting (white and green) just as explained in the tutorial above for the basic christmas tree. When you put enough white frosting on the cupcake (use a little more), top it with shreddened coconut and now comes the advanced part:

• 2. Use ice cream waffle cones for the base of the christmas trees: Place the ice cream cone, pointy side up in the middle of the white frosted cupcake and push it down gently. Unfortunately this is the only photo I have where you can see it:
  
  

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• 3. Frost the entire outside of the cone with the green tinted frosting. I used a small spoon first and to make the peaks, I used two toothpicks to make it look more real. Now you can decorate your christmas tree with your desired sprinkles and candies.

Et voilá:


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Hope you enjoyed my post, have a good start into the week, ladies and gentlemen.

Blessings…niner