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Small Pastries

Christmas Cupcakes

A fun alternative to the traditional holiday desserts: these Christmas cupcakes will make your table look amazing.
Recipe Christmas Cupcakes
  • Difficulty Medium
  • Preparation 10 minutes
  • Cooking 20 minutes
  • Servings for about 12 cupcakes

If this year you don’t want to end Christmas lunch with the usual panettone or pandoro, Italy’s classic Christmas sweet breads, bring a tray of eye-catching Christmas Cupcakes to the table and amaze everyone.

Cupcakes are soft little cakes, born in the United States, that look spectacular thanks to their typical topping of creamy frosting, usually made with cream or soft cheese, in all sorts of flavors and colors. This rich topping is exactly what sets them apart from the similar muffins.

Our Christmas Cupcakes recipe will guide you through making chocolate cupcakes: some finished with a rich hazelnut frosting, so they look like little reindeer, and others covered in a snow-white mascarpone frosting, so they look like Santa Claus’s chubby face. If you can’t resist “mini” desserts, also try the Mini Yogurt Bundt Cakes and the Mini Lime Cheesecakes.

 

Ingredients for about 12 cupcakes

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Method

  1. To make your Christmas cupcakes, start by preheating the oven to 180 °C (350 °F), then prepare the batter for the chocolate cupcakes. Break the chocolate into pieces in a bowl, melt it in the microwave or in a double boiler and let it cool slightly.
  2. In a large bowl, beat the butter, softened at room temperature (not melted and definitely not cold), with the sugar using an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy.
  3. With the mixer still running, add the first egg and, only once it has been absorbed, the second. Then pour in the melted chocolate in a thin stream, followed by the milk.
  4. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa together and fold them into the other ingredients carefully so that no lumps form. Line a cupcake or muffin pan with paper liners and fill them two-thirds full.
  5. Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes. Check that they are done with a toothpick before taking them out of the oven. When they are ready, remove them and let them cool.
  6. While the cupcakes cool, make the frostings. For the hazelnut frosting, put the Philadelphia cream cheese, the hazelnut paste and the sifted powdered sugar in a bowl and blend everything with an electric mixer. Put the mixture in the fridge to firm up while you carry on.
  7. For the mascarpone frosting, beat the mascarpone with an electric mixer for a few minutes, then add the sifted powdered sugar and the vanilla extract and keep beating. Pour in the very cold heavy cream in a thin stream and beat again until the mixture is thick and creamy. Put this second frosting in the fridge too.  
  8. Now you can finally decorate your Christmas cupcakes. For the reindeer, cover the cupcakes with the hazelnut frosting, then add a red candy for the nose and two white sugar pearls for the eyes. Using a toothpick and some melted dark chocolate, draw the pupils on the eyes.
  9. Use the melted chocolate for the antlers too. Put the chocolate in a parchment paper cone and pipe the shape of the antlers onto a sheet of acetate. Let them harden in the freezer for about ten minutes, then gently peel them off and set them on top of your cupcakes.
  10. For the Santa Claus cupcakes, cover the tops with a thin layer of pink fondant.
  11. Then, using a piping bag with a plain tip, pipe a full beard and a nice mustache with the mascarpone frosting. Stick a small ball of pink fondant on top for Santa’s nose.
  12. Make the eyes with two dots of melted chocolate. Finish the decoration by shaping the hat from the red fondant, with the white trim piped in the same frosting used for the beard. Finally, remember to download our App with exclusive content and fewer ads!

Storage

You can keep the chocolate cupcakes without frosting under a glass cake dome for three days.

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