Santa Cupcakes Recipe

Instead of leaving cookies for Santa, why not start a new tradition and leave him a cupcake this year? A Santa Cupcake of course! The iconic red suit is a symbol of Christmas for kids everywhere. The kids will have fun helping you bake up this recipe and assemble this fun holiday treat for Santa, for a gift, or for your holiday dessert table.

servings: 16 large cupcakes

Materials:

1 box cake mix and accompanying ingredients
2 sheets red card stock
1 sheet black card stock
1 scrap yellow or gold card stock
3 cups decorator icing
red food color
cupcake liners
cupcake pan
large round decorator tip
large star decorator tip
2 pastry bag
straight edge cutter or scissors
glue (or hot glue gun with glue sticks)

Preparation:

Step 1: Preheat your oven according to directions on the cake mix package. Line a muffin tin with 16 foil or paper liners (use Christmas-themed liners if you want be really festive!).

Step 2: Mix up the cake batter according to package directions.

Step 3: Pour the batter into the lined cups of the cupcake pan. Fill each cup about 2/3 of the way with batter.

Step 4: Bake according to directions for cupcakes, usually 20 minutes at around 350F. You know your cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Step 5: Once the cupcakes finish baking, set them aside to cool.

Step 6: While the cupcakes are cooling, make your cupcake wrappers. Use a straight edge cutter to cut red strips from the red construction paper. Each strip should be 1¼ inch by 8½ inches. Cut 16 strips. These strips will wrap around each cupcake’s base for Santa’s coat.

Step 7: Using the straight cutter, cut 16 black strips from the black construction paper. Each strip should be ¼ inch by 8½ inches. These will be Santa’s belt.

Step 8: Using scissors or yoru straight edge cutter, cut 16 belt buckle’s for Santa’s coat. Make the belt buckles by cutting gold or yellow rectangles, each measuring ¼ inch by ½ inch. You now have Santa’s coat, belt, and buckle, as shown below:

Step 9: Use the glue or hot glue gun to glue the black strip to the bottom of the red strip.

Step 10: Glue the yellow rectangle to the center of the black strip.

Step 11: Pull the sides of the red strip around to form a circle which will eventually wrap around the cupcakes, with the belts showing to the outside. Glue the edges together to hold the circles in place. Set the wraps aside to allow the glue to dry completely.

Step 12: While you are waiting for the cupcake wraps to dry, color your decorator icing. Divide the icing, and color 2/3rds of the icing red by add red food coloring, drop by drop, until the icing is your desired color.

Step 13: Add the round tip to the pastry bag, and fill the pastry bag with red icing.

Step 14: Use the pastry bag to swirl the red icing from the outside in on the top of the cupcake to form Santa’s hat, by squeezing the pastry bag as you move the tip around in circles. Swirl around in smaller circles until you come to a point.

Step 15: Add the star tip to the second pastry bag and fill it with white icing. Use the white icing to pipe a white band around the base of Santa’s hat, then add a small white icing tip to the top of the hat.