Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 box white cake mix (Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines, etc.)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream
• 4 large egg whites

Visit Recipe Girl for the full baking instructions.

Icing Ingredients (my FAVORITE icing):

• 1 cup butter
• 3 cups powdered sugar about 1 pound
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1-2 tablespoons half-and-half or cream

Visit The Gracious Wife for full icing instructions.

Extras:

• Sugar Cones
• Coconut shavings
• Wilton Star tip 21 (from my Starter Tip Set)
• Wilton round tip 12 (from my Starter Tip Set)
• Star cookie cutters (for our fondant tree topper)
• Lustre Dust for stars (I’ve found the best to be Oasis Supply on Amazon)
• Wilton Decorating Brush Set
• Fondant for stars
• Metallic cupcake liners
• Wilton 16″ Bags 
• Food Coloring (to make kelly green)

1. While you’re cupcakes cool, divide the finished white icing into two bowls.
2. In one bowl, dye your icing green. I mixed a dab of yellow and kept adding blue until I was happy with the color. When you’re done dying one half of your icing green, take half of the green icing and scoop it into a piping bag with the #21 star tip. The other half of the green icing will be used for covering our cone trees! Lastly, put your white icing into a separate piping bag with the #12 tip.
3. Holding your cupcake, swirl your white icing around your cupcake until you can no longer see the skin of the cupcake. I did mine about 3 times around. Cover with coconut shavings for some texture!
4. Next, grab a sugar cone. Holding the pointy tip of the sugar cone with your thumb, use an icing spatula to cover the tree with green icing. This step is to simply add a “background color” to your sugar cones so that we don’t see the cone itself. You want your layer to be thin. When I was icing my cones, I could hear my icing spatula scraping against the cone.
5. Gently place the green cone on top of the cupcake. We almost have a finished tree!
6. Grabbing your green icing in the bag with the #21 star tip, pump your tip against the cone tree to create a small star. These stars can be whatever size you prefer. They can be big, fat stars or tiny small stars. Pump up and down the tree, in no particular order.
7. Roll out your fondant. Stamp the fondant with a small, star cookie cutter. Tip: Long story short, I couldn’t find pre-made fondant in the grocery store and I didn’t feel like making my own (you have to use your time wisely with a little one around!) Luckily for me, our gingerbread houses came with red fondant so I just went with it. I would have preferred white fondant so that the gold stars truly showed “gold”, but I was still pleased with the results! After all, Christmas colors are red + green!
8. Brush your luster dust onto your stars and place on top of the cone point, gently pressing down until the stars stick.
9. The final step: powdered sugar! I didn’t have a sugar shaker (it’s next on my list) so I flicked my powdered sugar on my trees, but hey – whatever works. This is the most fun part! You finally get to see your trees come together and the powdered sugar “snow” is the cherry on top.

See Also

The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe