These easy Christmas cupcakes with brown sugar, vanilla flavor, and cream cheese frosting that looks like a candy cane are great for the holiday season. They’re soft, moist, delicious, and fun to make!
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Ingredients and substitutes
For the cupcakes
Flour - Use either all-purpose flour or cake flour to make this Christmas cupcake recipe.
Baking powder - There are no acidic ingredients in the cupcake batter, so we need only baking powder as a leavening agent.
Vanilla extract and salt - While brown sugar and butter already provide a lot of flavors, adding vanilla is never a bad idea. As for salt, we know that it is a must-have ingredient in baking!
Eggs - Eggs should be at room temperature.
Sugar - I used brown and white sugar to make my cupcakes, but you can replace brown sugar with white sugar if you want.
Fats - I use melted, unsalted butter and extra-mild olive oil (you can use canola or sunflower seed oil instead).
Milk - Milk should be at room temperature so that our melted butter won’t solidify again when we add it. You can heat your milk in a microwave just until it’s slightly warm (5-10 seconds) if you forgot to take it out of the fridge in advance.
For the frosting
Cream cheese - I use original Philadelphia cheese. You should take your cream cheese out from the fridge 1 hour in advance so it warms up a bit and will become softer before mixing in with the butter.
Unsalted butter - I make this frosting with butter for stability. Your unsalted butter should be at room temperature to whip easily with the sugar.
Sugar- As for any icing or frosting, you should use powdered sugar.
Food coloring - You should always use water-soluble food colorings for cream cheese frosting. They can be in gel, powder, or paste form. For my festive cupcakes, I'm going to use a red color to create an amazing candy cane look.
Cooking tips
Whip eggs well. Whipping together the eggs and sugar introduces air bubbles to our cupcake batter, making the texture fluffy and decadent.
Temper the milk. Tempering is described in the step-by-step directions, step #6 further in the post. We take a couple of tablespoons of cupcake batter that consists of eggs, sugar, and flour and add them to the milk, oil, and butter mixture. This will help to bring all the ingredients together and create an emulsion. That means, when you pour everything back into your main batter, the ingredients will combine much faster without deflating the batter too much. This is an important step if you want a fluffy texture and even rise. If you skip this step and add your milk and fats mixture straight into the batter, the fats and liquids are going to sink to the bottom of your bowl and make it difficult to combine with the rest of the ingredients.
Bake right away. This batter doesn't like waiting so, once you’ve finished mixing everything, fill the liners and bake your cupcakes.
Don't go overboard with food coloring. Adding too much food coloring can make your frosting less stable and difficult to pipe.
Step by step directions
For the cupcakes
1. Preheat the oven to 350F (175C) and line the muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Pour the oil into a microwave-safe bowl, add the butter, and heat just until the butter has melted. Then combine it with the milk and add vanilla extract.
4. Place the eggs, white sugar, and brown sugar in a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whip on medium-high until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture tripled in volume. It will take approximately 7 minutes.
5. Then, add the dry ingredients in 3 parts while the mixer is running on low just until incorporated and no flour is visible.
6. When done, take two tablespoons of the batter and add it to the milk mixture. Whisk until homogenous in consistency. Slowly pour everything back into the main batter while the mixer is running on low. Scrape the bottom and the sides of the bowl and mix on low for 10 seconds to combine.
7. Fill the cupcake liner ⅔ full and bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool down in the pan for a few minutes. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool down completely before frosting.
For the frosting
1. Place the butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and whip until fluffy and white. Then, add the cream cheese in several parts and whip it to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl and whip on medium-high until stable and fluffy.
2. Place half of the frosting from the bowl into a piping bag and add your food coloring to the second half. Whip until homogenous in color. Then, place the colored frosting into another piping bag and snap the tips of both bags so you have 1" openings.
3. Place a large piece of plastic wrap on your working surface and pipe 6 lines of frosting on top of the wrap, alternating the colors so they touch each other.
4. Fold the plastic wrap lengthwise and roll the frosting into a log. Twist the ends so it doesn’t escape.
5. Then, cut off one end of the frosting package and place it inside a clean piping bag fitted with your favorite piping nozzle. Decorate your cupcakes when they have completely cooled to room temperature.
Xmas cupcakes flavor variations
Add-ins - Chocolate chips, nuts, or cupcake fillings like Chocolate ganache, Salted caramel, or Raspberry coulis can be added to make different Christmas cupcake flavors. If you add chocolate chips and crushed nuts, do so by folding them into the batter before baking. To add the filling, bake your cupcakes, cut out a small hole in the middle, and fill it with the filling of your choice. You can then decorate with frosting to hide the holes.
Another batter - You can use my Easy chocolate cupcakes, or even Pumpkin muffins (without streusel topping) recipes if you want an absolutely different cupcake flavor.
Add spices - You can make a gingerbread cupcake flavor by adding ground cinnamon, ginger, clove, and nutmeg. Alternatively, you can add 1 teaspoon of allspice or pumpkin pie spice.
Different frosting - If you have your favorite buttercream frosting or whipped ganache, go for it!
Decoration ideas
Use different colors - If you're struggling with coming up with new Christmas cupcake ideas, just use different colors. You can color the batter of your cupcakes in any color of your choice and use different colors for your frosting.
Sprinkles - Another simple way to decorate is to sprinkle your cupcake hats with sprinkles of your choice.
Pipe frosting differently - You know that you don't have to pipe classy-looking cupcake hats, right? Instead, you can apply white frosting with an offset spatula on top of each cupcake (like you would do with a cake), creating a canvas for your creative ideas. On this smooth frosting top, you can pipe a Christmas wreath or Christmas tree (like I show in the pictures below). Or you can cut out a stencil from a piece of paper, place it on top of white frosting, and dust it with cocoa powder to create a beautiful design!
FAQ
Unfrosted cupcakes can be stored in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Frosted cupcakes should be stored for no more than 4 days.
You can freeze unfrosted cupcakes for 1-2 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight before frosting them.
More related recipes
Recipe card
Christmas cupcakes
Equipment
- Digital kitchen scale
- Stand mixer or hand mixer and a large mixing bowl
- Muffin pan
- Muffin liners
- Piping bags
- Piping nozzle
Ingredients
For the cupcakes
- 150 g all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- 1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 100 g white granulated sugar
- 50 g brown sugar
- 30 g vegetable oil such as canola oil, sunflower seed oil, or extra mild olive oil
- 30 g unsalted butter melted
- 100 ml whole milk at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the frosting
- 150 ml unsalted butter at room temperature
- 70 g powdered sugar
- 450 g cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon red food coloring more if needed
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F (175C) and line the muffin pan with paper liners.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- Pour the oil into a microwave-safe bowl, add the butter, and heat just until the butter has melted. Then combine it with the milk and add vanilla extract. Set aside.
- Place the eggs and white and brown sugar in a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or use a large bowl and a hand mixer). Whip on medium-high until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture tripled in volume. It will take approximately 7 minutes depending on what mixer you use.
- Then, add the dry ingredients in 3 parts while the mixer is running on low just until incorporated and no flour is visible.
- When done, take two tablespoons of the batter and add it to the milk mixture. Whisk until homogenous in consistency. Slowly pour everything back into the main batter while the mixer is running on low. Scrape the bottom and the sides of the bowl and mix on low for 10 seconds to combine.
- Fill the cupcake liner ⅔ full and bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool down in the pan for a few minutes. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool down completely before frosting.
For the frosting
- Place the butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or you can use a hand mixer and a bowl) and whip until fluffy and white. Then, add the cream cheese in several parts and whip it to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl and whip on medium-high until stable and fluffy.
- Place half of the frosting from the bowl into a piping bag and add your food coloring to the second half. Whip until homogenous in color. Then, place the colored frosting into another piping bag and snap the tips of both bags so you have 1" openings.
- Place a large piece of plastic wrap (so you can roll all the frosting in a log with it) on your working surface and pipe 6 lines of frosting on top of the wrap, alternating the colors so they touch each other.
- Fold the plastic wrap lengthwise and roll the frosting into a log. Twist the ends so it doesn’t escape.
- Then, cut off one end of the log and place it inside a clean piping bag fitted with your favorite piping nozzle. Decorate your cupcakes when they have completely cooled to room temperature. If you’re not frosting right away, keep the piping bags with frosting in the fridge.
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