Recipe: Mini Chocolate Cupcake Christmas Trees

Whoa, look at all those C words up there…

In an unusual gesture, for Christmas, I decided to give gifts for the teachers as well as my fellow peers. This Christmas tree recipe had caught my eye back when I had first purchased the book, and since the holidays have come along, it was my excuse to indulge in such an endeavor.

 It’s kind of required for you to buy the book, however, unless you have a 1inch in diameter round cookie cutter and a thimble to bake in.


Mini Chocolate Cupcake Christmas Trees 

Recipe from Itty-Bitty Baking by Delia Greve
Yields 12 trees.

Chocolate Cupcake
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 once melted unsweetened chocolate (put a piece of chocolate in a bowl and microwave it in 30 second intervals, stirring in-between, until it’s melted)

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/175 degrees Celsius.
• Cream the sugar and butter. Mix in the egg until it’s smooth, then add the vanilla and melted chocolate.
• Add dry ingredients (flour, baking powder).
• Pour in the milk slowly until the batter is smooth (I personally never found the batter to be unsmooth, and it got a bit ruined after the milk, but whatever’s your own)
• Pour an inch of batter into a 8 inch x 8 inch pan. The rest goes into the Itty-Bitty cupcake pan included with the book (this is why getting the book is so vital in making it… unless you actually have a silicon thimble). The remaining batter will be used for a final round of cupcakes.
• Bake the cake for 20 minutes and the cupcakes for 10.

Decorations
Ingredients

• Green food colouring
• Frosting (store-bought or home-made – whatever works for you, but the frosting will be the most important part)
• A froster (either a piping bag or some other contraption which works in a simular manner) with a star-shaped tip
• Candies (cola balls and candy cane sprinkles were used in the book’s picture, while I used coloured – and regular – sugar, rainbow sprinkles, holiday coloured rounds, and a white chocolate chip for the star, but really, have fun with it!)

Directions

1. Mix the green food colouring and frosting together. This will be the leaves of the tree. Put frosting in your frosting device.
2. Squeeze a mound of frosting onto the cupcake part (the smaller part) of your cupcake. It should be pointed at the end. Keep doing this until you’ve covered the whole top in frosting.
3. Decorate and enjoy!