Tis the Season for

Cupcakes! At least in this house it is. For Christmas this year, I made 3 dozen cupcakes to take over to my husband's Uncle's house. I had 1 dozen Christmas lights cupcakes, 1 dozen medallion cupcakes and 1 dozen cranberry upside down cupcakes. I will admit, the first two cupcakes where the same flavor, chocolate with vanilla frosting, just decorated different. Also, I don't have my usual pictures of the cupcakes. In all the Christmas madness, I forgot to snap away here at home, so pictures were not taken until we were at the party. To be more concise, until I was in the food line and my husband was waiting to get his dinner. So thank you to my husband Jeff who took the pictures for me, so I could share them with you.

First up we have the Cranberry Upside Down Cupcakes. I use to make these all the time (in bigger form) at the catering company I worked at. We would take extra cranberries, glaze them and then but them on top, which I had planned to do but unfortunately, I ran out of cranberries. I decided to add some tangerine zest to the batter this time around, and I think it added a nice touch.

For Christmas, my sister got me the Hello Cupcake book. In it, I found the recipe to make these Christmas light cupcakes. I had planned to make all the cupcakes look like the lights, but after doing a dozen of them, I realized my time was running short (naps were almost over), so I stopped at that dozen.

I made red, yellow, blue and green lights. Some of the party goers thought they looked like turtles.

So here is what I whipped up for the second dozen of Dark Chocolate Cupcakes. I took a disk of fondant, and using another gift from my sister, I embossed the design on the disk. Then I painted them with red metallic edible dust and some edible pearls. I really like these guys for just coming up with them on the fly.

And here are the cupcakes in yet another Christmas gift (this time from my aunt and uncle). I love this carrier. It holds 2 dozen cupcakes and when not in use, it is collapsible. If you plan to make and take a lot of cupcakes places in the new year, I highly recommend getting one.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, and that you are enjoying your gifts as much as I have been. Next week, how a cupcake started New Years.