Sunday 4th December 2016
The kids are off school and if you’re lucky you’ve got a little downtime too. When you’re not prepping and planning for family visits and dashing off on last-minute shopping sprints, get into the Christmas spirit with the little ones and enjoy filling your kitchen with some festive flavours.
All that’s needed to make these cupcakes alive with character is some ready-to-roll icing, buttercream and the unlimited imagination of the kids. Have fun designing characterful cupcake toppings that include a band of cheeky elves and a host of friendly snowfolk. These merry morsels are ideal for neighbourly visits and Christmas knees ups. Our step-by-step guide will walk you through how to do it – unless you want to take your snow folk off-piste and experiment with facial expressions and novel knitwear.
The trick to getting these Santa hat cake pops perfect is in creating the fudge-like texture needed to mould the conical hat shapes. Once you have it, wrap your mixture in cling film and refrigerate for an hour – this makes it much easier to created the desired cone and gives you the smooth base you need for a seamless colour-melt finish. These pops make perfect stocking fillers or last-day-of-school treats for hardworking teachers.
Why not decorate your tree with a cheerful string of fairy light biscuits this Christmas? Kids will love making these simple yet spicy ginger biscuits and choosing their festive ready-to-roll icing colour scheme. These biccies are very easy to make yet impressive to look at once you’ve strung some friendly red ribbon through them. Enjoy them as the perfect mid-winter bite the whole family will enjoy with a cup of cocoa.
Christmas is all about snuggling up and hunkering down, so bobble hat cupcakes are the ultimate homely season treat to enjoy on the sofa, in a blanket, watching Christmas classics. The trick to getting the perfect peak to your bobble hat is to pop a marshmallow onto your baked cake with a little buttercream. Form the dome by spreading the buttercream around it with a palette knife. Choose your ready-to-roll colours and use sugar crystals to complete your festive look cakes.
Other than waking to the weighty crunch of unopened gifts at the foot of the bed, the next most exciting thing about a stocking is surely the presence of tasty treats in the form of candy or chocolate or, in Germany, traditional ginger biscuits. These spicy candy cane biscuit bakes are perfect pre-breakfast mouthfuls to enjoy before the sun’s come up. If you are planning to pop one into the kids’ stockings then it’s best to make these solo to keep the mystery and magic of the Christmas stocking contents alive…
We hope you enjoy making some of our fun festive fare. Discover more baking ideas and inspiration by browsing our recipe and blog archives.