Christmas Cupcakes

Have fun with the children over the Christmas holidays making and decorating these easy cakes.

Makes 12                Preparation 20 mins    Cook 20 mins          Can be frozen un-iced

Ingredients

FOR THE CAKES

  • 280g self-raising flour
  • 175g golden caster sugar
  • 175g unsalted butter , very soft
  • 150g pot fat-free natural yogurt
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 eggs

FOR THE FROSTING

  • 85g unsalted butter , softened
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 200g icing sugar , sifted

TO DECORATE

  • natural green food colouring (for Christmas trees), sweets, sprinkles and white chocolate stars
  • milk and white chocolate buttons and natural colouring icing pens.
  

Method

  1. Heat oven to 190C/170 fan/gas 5 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cake cases. Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and mix with a whisk until smooth. Spoon the mix into the cases, bake for 25 mins until golden and risen and a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
  2. For the frosting, beat the butter, vanilla extract and icing sugar until pale and creamy and completely combined. To make snowmen, reindeer and Christmas puddings, first spread the icing over the top of each cake. Then lay the chocolate buttons on top, slicing some buttons into quarters to make ears and hats. Finally, use icing pens for the details. For the Christmas tree, colour the icing with green food colouring and pipe onto the cakes using a star-shaped nozzle, decorate with sweets, sprinkles and white chocolate stars.