Cupcake Christmas Tree

I love this delicious treat quasi table decor (even if it is only for a short time until everyone digs in). Who doesn't like cupcakes? Let alone mini bite-size ones. Last Christmas I jumped on the trend of mini cupcakes and bought a babycakes cupcake maker. I will admit that I have not used it as much as I thought I would. But it is a lot of fun to have and did I mention I got it on sale...

One of the best things about this machine is that you have you have the option of making your batter from scratch (machine comes with a recipe booklet) or using a box mix.  For this particular dessert I used a box mix I had on hand.

What you need-

-Box mix or ingredients to make your batter from scratch

- Mini cupcake liners

- Spoon or ladle to fill cupcake liners

-Frosting

- Twix or Snickers candy bar (for tree bark)

-Cookie icing (to embellish)

-M&M's or other candies and sprinkles (to embellish)

Step 1- Follow box instructions to prepare batter.

Step 2 - Begin spooning batter into cupcake liners. Due to the size of the machine, you can only bake 8 cupcakes at a time. Once batter has been spooned into cupcake liners close machine and let bake until green light comes on signifying cupcakes are ready. (Sometimes, I would leave the cupcakes in longer to allow cupcakes to brown a little longer. Repeat until batter runs out. (Makes approximately 45 cupcakes.)

Step 3- Ice cupcakes with green frosting. You can either buy green frosting or use food coloring to dye.

Step 4- Arrange your cupcakes into shape of Christmas tree on whatever plate or surface you will serve from or display. I used a total of 29 cupcakes for my tree based on the size of my plate. My top row had 1 and my bottom row had 7.

Step 5- Place your Twix or Snickers at the base of your bottom row for your tree bark.

Step 6- Decorate your tree. I used cookie icing to create the look of garland and M&M's for ornaments and to create the star on the top of my tree.

Step 7- Dig in and Enjoy!

Happy Holidays!