Use your favorite cupcake and frosting recipe. Make sure you purchase some piping bags which you can find at the grocery store or craft store. Kids love using the piping bags and they also make things a lot neater and easier than using spreaders. Also, purchase a few bags of candy such as gum drops, nonpareils and marshmallows.
For our ribbon cupcakes we used red and green gum drops as decorations. We rolled them with a standard rolling pin, sprinkling regular sugar on the surface to prevent too much stickiness. After rolling out the gumdrops, the pieces can be easily cut into almost any shape with a pair of kitchen shears. We cut the gum drops into strips and then used frosting to hold the pieces together in the center to create the finished bow. We finished these cupcakes off with a few sparkling dragees. Our poinsettia cupcakes and the holly leaves were also made using this method.
To make the peppermint pin wheel, Santa and the pretty wreath cupcakes, we first coated the top of the cupcake with a generous amount of plain white frosting. We piped on the decorations using the same frosting dyed with food coloring and used licorice and tiny red dot candies to finish off Santa’s face and the wreaths. For Santa's hat we used the rolled-out gum drops as well.
Don't you think these cupcakes would be great to make for a bake sale, school holiday party or December birthday party?
