Everyone loves cupcakes! They are absolutely adorable, easy to serve and eat and they will definitely put a smile on people’s faces!

If you think you cannot make them, because it is too hard and complicated, i must tell you that i agree to disagree. So, here it is, 12 steps on how to bake cupcakes followed by a video on how to frost cupcakes and last but not least how to decorate them for Christmas. It is not that hard if you follow the instruction, plus HERE you have lots of ideas to get inspired by.

You can use any recipe you have, the only difference there might be in the process of making cupcakes is the baking time. I will use the Banana Cake Recipe.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sour cream
1 cup mashed bananas
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×9 inch pan.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light. Add eggs and beat well. Dissolve soda in the sour cream and add it to the butter mixture. Beat well. Add the mashed bananas and mix in. Add cake flour and mix well. Stir in vanilla extract.
Pour batter into a 9×9 inch pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes or until done.

Step 1

Check the butter and eggs to be at room temperature, as with any cake, before starting to mix the batter. Then measure your ingredients, preheat the oven and prepare yourself YOU ARE BAKING CUPCAKES!

Step 2

Take you muffin tin and with cooking spray, spray a light coat over the surface of the pan, this way the tops of your cupcakes will not stick to the pan if they rise above their liners. After this, put the cupcake liners on the pan.

Step 3

Put the butter and sugar in a mixing ball and then start creaming it on medium speed until it gets light and fluffy. But do not forget to scrape down the sides of the ball once or twice.

Step 4 ( tip)

The butter should be noticeably lighter in color as you beat air into it and the mixture will look very fluffy, unlike cookie doughs, where you want the sugar and butter to be well combined.

Step 5

Add the room temperature eggs into the mixing ball one at the time and beat it well after each addition. We use room temperature eggs because we want our cake batter to be smooth and homogeneous, and this would not happen if we would use eggs from the refrigerator.

Step 6

After all the eggs are incorporated, add the flavors. For our banana recipe, we will add sour cream and mashed banana.

Step 7

All the powder ingredients, like cake flour, baking soda and cocoa powder should be sifted before adding them into the mixture, to prevent dry lumps. Because these lumps cannot be broken unless vigurous beating and our cake batter does not need that, what it needs is gentle mixing.

Step 8

At this point you have added all the ingredinets and you just have to stir the batter until it’s smooth and do not forget to scrape down the sides and the bottom of your mixing ball with a rubber spatula.

Step 9

Using a spoon or an ice cream scoop, which is so much better because you do not have to get dirty and it’s faster and the batter is equaly divided between the muffin cups, scoop the batter into the muffin pan.

Step 10

Once the pan is full, get it into the oven! It is not right to let them sit out, because you lose leavening power.

Step 11

Because of their small size, cupcakes bake more quikly than cakes, so you will have to check them after twenty minutes. If the cupcake spring back when you touch the center lighlty with the tip of your finger, that means they are done!

Step 12

But because you are never too sure, use toothpick test to find out exacly if they are done or not.

Insert a toothpick in the center of a cupcake and hold it there for a second before pulling it out.
If there’s any wet batter on the toothpick, continue baking for a few more minutes.
If the toothpick comes out clean, or a couple of crumbs stick to the toothpick, they’re done.

Let the pan to cool down and only after remove the cupcakes from it to cool completely before frosting and decorating!

You are done! You just did your first cupcakes! How does it feel?

Now, lets learn how to frost them!

To properly finish the cupcakes we must learn also how to decorate them. I have chosen two videos that show us how to make a Christmas Tree and a Christmas Wreath.

Enjoy your cupcakes! You did a very good job!