Christmas cupcakes are a great treat for any holiday party or event. If you enjoy decorating Christmas cookies, Christmas cupcakes can be just as fun! Today to inspire you we’ve rounded up all of our favorite Christmas cupcake ideas.
You can make cupcakes in a wide variety of flavors and different colors. From chocolate to vanilla to even strawberry or red velvet cake, you are sure to have a lot of fun decorating cupcakes with family and friends!
1. Christmas Tree Cupcakes
Christmas tree cupcakes are easy enough to make – all you need is some frosting! You can use decorative sugar pearls or sprinkles for ornaments. We love the pretty snowflake accents on the cupcake wrapper!
If green frosting is not your cup of tea, you can always opt for vanilla or white buttercream frosting and then decorate with green sprinkles as shown below.
2. Santa Hats Christmas Cupcakes Idea
We love these adorable santa hats decorated cupcakes! Red frosting is used to make the hat, and then you pipe on white frosting along the edges and the top.
3. Simple Chocolate Cupcakes With White Frosting and Decorations
These chocolate christmas cupcakes are simple enough to make {you could get away with using a boxed cake mix!} – just add your favorite frosting and let the kids decorate them anyway they like!
4. Fondant Holly and Ivy Cupcakes
These adorable festive cupcakes use fondant icing to create holly leaves and berries on top.
5. Snowflake Cupcakes
Are you dreaming of white Christmas? These snowflake cupcakes are perfect Christmas cupcakes for beginner to celebrate winter, or even a fun day in January. Light blue frosting is accented with decorative snowflake sprinkles.
6. Christmas Ornament Cupcakes
These ornament shaped cupcakes may be a little more complicated to make but are definitely doable with the use of cake decorating stencils! The cupcake uses two pieces of cereal to make the hanging hook. How adorable!
7. Gingerbread Cupcakes
Everybody loves classic Gingerbread around Christmas time, and these cupcakes are simple enough to decorate. Simply use your favorite cake mix {we recommend a spice cake mix!} and top with white frosting and miniature decorated gingerbread cookies. How cute!
8. Candy Cane Cupcakes
What is Christmas time without candy canes? These cupcakes are wrapped with red wrappers, iced in white frosting, and topped with miniature candy canes to give a festive look for any party! Not a fan of peppermint? You can always substitute with other flavors of candy canes you enjoy!
9. Assorted Fondant Cupcakes
Fondant and decorative candy pieces makes it possible to create almost any type of Christmas themed cupcake! You can twist up candy canes against a blue fondant topping, or even make a snowman! We especially love the wreath and present cupcakes, which are made in a similar fashion. Serve up a whole assortment and you are sure to have fun making these!
10. Cherry Topped Red and Green Cupcakes
These homemade Christmas cupcake idea is easy enough to make – simply add a few drops of green food coloring to your cake batter! Frost with red or pink frosting and top with a cherry for an extra special touch.
11. Paper Tree Cupcake Toppers
If you’re not a fan of icing or don’t have time for an elaborate cupcake decorating session, these simple paper cupcake toppers are an easy way to add a festive touch without spending a lot of time or making a mess.
You can easily make your own paper cupcake toppers simply by cutting out Christmas tree shapes {easy to do with a Cricut, Sizzix or Silhouette machine!} and gluing the shapes to a toothpick. Add a pretty red ribbon around the base of the cupcake for a nice extra special touch.
12. Reindeer Cupcakes
These reindeer cupcakes are all too cute and would be a great holiday activity to make with the kids!
For these cupcakes all you need are pretzels to make the ears, cream colored frosting, and Skittles or M&M’s to make the eyes and nose. Use a drop of black icing on the candy eyes to make them as shown in the photo.
13. Rosemary and Cranberry Cupcakes
While kids might not be a huge fan of this Christmas cupcake decorating idea, adults will surely enjoy the savory combination of rosemary and cranberries, which mimics the look of holly and pine branches. Be sure to use sweetened cranberries – and if you like you can even add some dried cranberries into the cake batter!
14. Santa Hat Candy Red Velvet Cupcakes
These cupcakes are made with a red velvet cake mix and topped with white icing and sprinkles. Candy shaped like a Santa hat and red cupcake wrappers make these a great treat for everyone waiting for Santa!
15. Snowman Cupcake
These snowman cupcakes look a lot more challenging to make than they actually are! The snowman on top is made from white nougat candies held together with frosting and wrapped with red fondant scarf, hat, arms, eyes, and carrot nose. You could alternatively use pretzel sticks for the arms!
Shredded coconut on top of icing provides a nice fresh bed of snow for our snowman to rest and the cupcake wrapper is decorated with a festive red holiday ribbon and accented with a snowflake sticker. Too cute!
16. Jolly Word Cupcakes
These cupcakes are easy to decorate with your choice of buttercream frosting and sprinkled – simply add some decorative paper cupcake words to accent and make the cupcakes all the more merry!
17. Christmas Wreath Cupcakes
These Christmas wreath cupcakes are a great choice for icing lovers! To make these cupcakes, simply frost around the edge to create the wreath shape with your icing color of choice. Fill the center with candy sugar pearls and decorate with your choice of toppers and sprinkles.
18. Eggnog Cupcakes
If no holiday is complete without the traditional egg nog, you’re sure to love these eggnog cupcakes, decorated with green icing and sprinkles.
19. Marshmallow Melting Snowman Cupcakes
These are a lot of fun to decorate and can be made in a number of ways. To start, ice the cupcakes with white frosting. Add a marshmallow on top, use candy for the eyes and nose, and use icing to make arms or use pretzels.
21. Chocolate Chip Rosemary Cupcakes
A chocolate alternative to our cranberry and rosemary cupcakes above, this is sure to satisfy your chocolate cravings around the holidays!
These cupcakes are made very simply by mixing in chocolate chips or chocolate chunks into the cake batter and then accenting with pieces of cinnamon bark and fresh rosemary sprigs.
22. Christmas Snow Globe Cupcakes
These cupcakes are very unique as they use plastic globes to create a snow globe effect! To make these, simply decorate cupcakes to your liking, add a decorated sugar or gingerbread cookie, and top with the plastic globe. Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top to make it look like the snowflakes are falling!
23. Chocolate Dipped Cupcakes
These chocolate dipped cupcakes are easy to make with hard candy chocolate syrup, although they are a bit on the messier side to make! Once they are dipped, you can add your favorite Christmas themed sprinkles for a treat that is sure to get rave reviews.
24. Raspberry Cupcake
For a different take on our cherry topped cupcakes, you can always add a red raspberry on top of a frosted cupcake and sprinkle on powdered cocoa, nuts or cinnamon.
25. Mint Chocolate Cupcakes
These mint chocolate cupcakes are easy to make! Start with a chocolate cake mix, top with mint frosting {add green food coloring and 1 drop of mint extract to the icing. Garnish with a Junior Mint chocolate candy and a sprig of fresh mint.
I hope you enjoy these 25 Christmas cupcake ideas, and of course if you have any Christmas cupcake decorating ideas or recipes you would like to share, I’d love to hear them in the comments below!