Christmas Baking with Snowman Cupcakes

I sure miss having children around the house. When my kids were growing up this time of year was so busy for us as I would be baking up all sorts of Christmas Baking for the upcoming holidays and for their parties at school, etc. There would be cakes and cookies and tarts, and all sorts.

Now that there is only Todd and myself, my baking is of course cut way back. Two people can only eat so much food . . . I do love to make a tasty Christmas Cake Recipe every year . . . as well as a delicious Christmas Pudding Recipe.

Alas once I had the cupcakes in the oven baking . . . I realized that I didn't have everything that I needed to decorate them, and the Toddster had just settled into watching one of his cowboy films, Mitzie was not feeling well . . . and I didn't feel like I could ask him to go to the shops. Truth be told, he never comes back with what I want anyways . . . it boggles my mind sometimes how he can get it so wrong! ☺

So what you are seeing here today . . . is my adaptation of the recipe on the Baking Mad Page. I didn't have the ready roll icing in white . . . so I made a simple fondant that I spooned over top and let set. I didn't have black and red designer icings either, so I cut up bits of licorice to use as eyes and smiles . . .

I rouged their cheeks with a little bit of watered down red food coloring and a paint brush . . . and I dusted their noses with a bit of orange.

This one is called MUMBLES because he was born without a mouth. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!)

I didn't have the proper things for the scarves either . . . but I did have some turquoise blue ready roll icing and so I just made their scarves out of that. Not perfect but . . . I guess they turned out OK. When needs must and all that!

*Christmas Snowmen Cupcakes*

Makes 12

Cute, easy to make and quite, quite delicious! (Adapted from the Bakingmad.com site.)

black designer icing

red designer icing

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.

Cream

the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Gradually beat

in the eggs and vanilla, making sure it is well amalgamated. If your

eggs begin to curdle add a tbs of the flour. Whisk together the flour

and baking powder. Stir this into the creamed mixture along with the

vanilla until smooth. Divide the mixture equally amongst the muffin

cups.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until risen, golden brown and the

top springs back when lightly touched. Remove to a wire rack to cool

completely before proceeding.

Dust the counter top with icing

sugar and roll out the ready to roll icing 1/4 inch thick. Cut out 12

circles which are slightly smaller than the tops of the cupcakes. Mix

together the apricot jam and the water. Brush some on the top of each

cupcake and then top with the circles of icing. Brush some jam on one

flat side of each marshmallow and stick one on top of each icing circle

slightly off centre. Roll the scraps of icing into 12 small balls for

the noses. Roll in apricot jam and then in the coconut. Attach to the

faces using a little dab of jam. Pipe a bit of black on for the eyes

and red for the smiles. Using a dab of apricot jam stick on the silver

balls for buttons. Wrap the strawberry belts around the marshmallows

for scarves.

Store in an airtight container.

Not only does MUMBLES find himself unable to speak . .. but he is quite, quite unable to follow directions either . . . as you can see he's somehow found himself standing out of line . . .

He was the first to fall . . . poor little MUMBLES . . . I bet he wished he'd been a bit better at following directions. *tee *hee*