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How to Make Christmas Tree Cupcakes
• Lynsey Macdonald
The holidays are here, and what better way to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year than with treats that are as festive as they are fun to eat? We’re making Christmas tree cupcakes!
Whether you're baking gifts for friends, treats for an office party, or just having some fun with the family, these cupcakes will be the star of the show! Nothing says Christmas like a twinkling tree design. These cuties are delicious AND easy to make, the perfect combination. Festive vibes incoming in 3, 2, 1...
We love seeing you bake alongside us, using our content to inspire your creations! So remember to tag us in your photos if you follow along and make these festive treats.

What you'll need...
You'll need a batch of pre-made cupcakes. Follow our recipe for cupcakes for this step. In addition to your batch of pre-made cupcakes, you'll need...
Ingredients/edible decorations:
- Colour Mill Forest Oil Based 20ml
- Colour Mill Gloss Frost White Vanilla Buttercream 1L x2
- Sattina Luxury Raspberry and White Chocolate Cake Mix 1kg
- FunCakes Golden Stars Sprinkles
- Purple Cupcakes Cutie Pie 4mm Shimmer Pearl
- Cake Lace Silver Pump Push Edible Glitter Dust
- FunCakes Flavour Paste (optional - please note this can alter the colour of your buttercream, especially stronger colours like Raspberry and Passionfruit! But they taste delicious!)
Tools:
- A Petal or Leaf Shaped Decorating Tip (we used the Wilton #366 Leaf Decorating Tip)
- A Closed Star Piping Tip (we used the Colour Mill 2G Closed Star Piping Tip)
- Simply Making 12 inch disposable piping bags
- Purple Cupcakes Metallic Mini Sprinkles Scoops Pack of 3 (optional - an easy (and super cute) way to add your sprinkles to any bake!)
Presentation:
- Green cupcake cases
- Simply Making Christmas Lights Cupcake Box
- Simply Making Plain White Photography Backdrop (optional - if you want to level up your photography!)
Please note: you can absolutely swap out the cake mix flavour for your Christmas tree cupcakes! We went for a delicious raspberry option, but this is an easy change if you prefer something different.


Tutorial - Christmas Tree Cupcakes
Step 1: Bake your cupcakes!
Start off by baking a batch of cupcakes! We used the delicious White Chocolate and Raspberry Cake Mix from Sattina here. It's so easy, all you need to do is add water, bake and leave to cool.

Step 2: Prepare your frosting
Put your Gloss Frost (this is a fantastic, ready-made buttercream with a beautiful glossy finish - an amazing time saver!) into a bowl and give it a stir. Here, you can also add your flavouring if desired - mix thoroughly and taste test.
Step 3: Add your frosting to your piping bag
Snip the end off a piping bag, pop in your petal or leaf piping tip and put your Gloss Frost into the bag.

Step 4: Create a border with a petal tip
Use your petal tip to pipe individual petal shapes, creating a border around the top of your cupcake. Repeat this on all of your cupcakes!
Step 5: Colour your buttercream
Add your Forest Green Colour Mill colouring to a separate bowl of Gloss Frost. This is a concentrated colouring so only add a little at a time and stir. Continue to build it up until you reach your preferred shade of green!

Step 6: Select your closed star piping tip
Again, add your piping tip (this time your Closed Star tip) to a separate piping bag and fill with your green buttercream.
Step 7: Pipe on your Christmas trees
Carefully pipe your Christmas tree shapes onto the top of your cupcakes, making sure not to disturb the pretty white border you created earlier! Pipe round in a swirl shape, working up to the classic peak shape. You can watch this being done in our YouTube video!

Step 8: Time to get decorating
Now's the fun part - decorating your trees! To add some classic festive baubles, we used these colourful pearl sprinkles from Purple Cupcakes. They have a lovely shimmery finish that catches the light beautifully.

Step 9: Add a star on top
And what's a Christmas Tree without a star on top! We went for the striking Golden Stars sprinkles from FunCakes, they are the perfect rich gold shade. Finish with a spritz of edible glitter from Sugarflair to add that essential twinkly effect.

Step 10: Put them in your cupcake box
Finally, it's time to box up your beautiful Christmas Tree Cupcakes. We think the Simply Making Christmas Lights box is the perfect match for these cuties. With a window lid, your hard work will still be shown off while transporting your treats from A to B. This is the perfect packaging if you're gifting the cupcakes to friends or family this festive season!

And there you have it! These Christmas Tree Cupcakes are a perfect addition to any Christmas treat table, a lovely gift option, and so fun to make!
Our resident baker, Holly, whipped up this batch (isn't she talented?!), and she'll be back soon with another tutorial to get your creativity flowing! While we already have lots lined up, if you have any requests for Holly, don't hesitate to send us a message!
Thanks so much for checking out our tutorial. You can watch the video version on our sister site CCW's YouTube channel!