Are you ready for Christmas cupcakes? Ok hang on, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend and that your turkey hangovers are wearing off. This weekend we are transitioning into the last month of the year. So now it is time to really start thinking about Christmas and the New Year! Time to pull out the Christmas decor (if you haven’t already), count down the days, drink endless cups of cocoa, shop, give, party, cook and bake… wow… Just typing it all makes me a little exhausted.
But don’t allow this holiday season to zap you of your holiday joy. Be sure to choose some amazing ways to celebrate the holidays. One of our favorite activities is making these yummy and fun Christmas Cupcakes.
And because this activity is supposed to be joyful and fun, I don’t stress about perfect baking. In fact, for these Christmas cupcakes, I use a ton of shortcuts like using a boxed cake mix and canned white and chocolate frostings. you can whip up a scratch cake mix and homemade buttercream frosting if you like.
The assembly of these festive Christmas cupcakes is really the best part. I lay out some guidelines as to which of the ingredients should be used for each cupcake but I let the kids use their imaginations and really create them how they wish. These cupcakes aren’t meant to be super neat and orderly but fun and whimsical. Remembering this helps to calm the control-freak in me and activates the fun-loving side.
When we are done decorating, we usually end up with snowmen, reindeer, and Santas. And once all the Christmas cupcakes and decorated I let the kids indulge in the leftover toppings.
My entire family loves decorating these Christmas cupcakes. We enjoy eating them even more. Please tell me some of your favorite activities for the holidays.
Christmas Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 box cake mix (water, oil, & eggs as directed on box)
- M&Ms, sorted by color*
- 1 can whipped white frosting
- 1 can chocolate frosting
Santa Cupcakes
- 1-2 tubes red decorating gel
- miniature marshmallows
Snowman Cupcakes
- White Sparkling Decorating Sugar
Reindeer Cupcakes
- large pretzel twists
- Nilla wafer cookies
Instructions
-
Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pans). Make and cool cupcakes as directed on box for 24 cupcakes.
Santa Cupcakes
-
Frost Santa cupcakes with white frosting.
-
At the top edge of the cupcake add a little red decorating gel to look like Santa's hat
-
Add 3-4 mini marshmallows horizontally under the red decorating gel. (This is the brim of Santa's hat)
-
Arrange 2 green M&M's on cupcake under the hat for eyes.
-
Center a red M&M below the eyes for nose.
-
Place 6-7 more mini marshmallows below the nose to resemble Santa's beard. Store loosely covered.
Snowman Cupcakes
-
Frost Snowman cupcakes with white frosting.
-
Sprinkle sugar crystals over tops of cupcakes.
-
Arrange 2 brown M&M's on cupcake for eyes.
-
Center an orange M&M below the eyes for nose.
-
Place more brown M&Ms below for mouth. Store loosely covered.
Reindeer Cupcakes
-
Frost Reindeer cupcakes with chocolate frosting.
-
Cut pretzel twist in half; arrange on cupcake for reindeer antlers.
-
Arrange 2 like colored M&M's on cupcake for eyes.
-
Center a Nilla wafer under the eyes. (it's ok if the cookie hangs slight over the cupcake)
-
Using more frosting or decorating gel, center another M&M below the eyes for nose. (We use red for Rudolph and brown for the others).
-
Store loosely covered.
Recipe Notes
*Let the kids sort the M&Ms. Mine love this task.
These look great! I’ll have to make some cupcakes with my kids. They’d get a kick out of decorating them. I like the Santa one.
Your cupcakes are adorable. I love the reindeer one and they are all cute. I could see my younger grandkids wanting to help decorate these cupcakes.
OHHHH loveee these DIY decorating cupcakes! Now what I really want though is just a cupcake in general. WITH LOTS OF FROSTING – haha!
Oh my gosh I’m totally doing this with my family. This would be a fun project to do with any age of children and it’s easy. We are definitely going to do this over this holiday season.
Love decorating with the kids and grandkids. Not about perfect but having fun. Being together and making memories
We always have a cupcake at our Winter Carnival. It’s one of the better attended stations at the carnival. Like you said it helps to have a variety of toppings so everyone can participate and enjoy the fun
This is such a lovely idea of something to do at a Christmas Party! Everyone could decorate their own cakes before they get to tuck in! Perfect.
These cupcakes are adorable! My kids love to bake and decorate cookies and cupcakes this time of year. The reindeer cupcake is so cute, I want to make some of those for sure.
These are such cute cupcakes. I love the reindeer one the most but they’re all pretty adorable.
My kids would of love these cupcakes, they look like they are having a fun time making them!
These are the cutest things! I can not wait to make these! My kids are gonna flip.
What a delightful family activity. Those cupcakes are adorable and I can tell by their faces that they had a wonderful time!
Oh these are great! We love to bake Christmas goodies together at this time of year, I will give these a try!
Nothing like baking, icing and decorating with the kids. 🙂 My kids would love that snowman cupcake and generally putting all of these together.
These Christmas Cupcakes are so cute! I need to have a baking day with my nieces and nephews soon!!
Those are such cute Cupcakes! I know we are tasked to bring desserts to the family party. I bet the kids will all love these cupcakes
These are absolutely adorable. I love how they turned out. I can’t even pick just one that I would love over another. The family time is a great time to make memories also.
Christmas cupcakes looks delicious this is really easy and fun for kids to make it. Love this idea.
I love to make Christmas cupcakes with my son. These are all three fun ideas! The snowman is my personal favorite.