Santa Claus & Frosty Cupcakes How-To

You will need:

• Solid Black Muffin Cups
• Red fine crystal Sanding Sugar
• Pastel Blue fine crystal Sanding Sugar
• Retro Holiday Stamps Picks, sold in sets of 12
• Black Fondarific Buttercream Fondant
• Red Fondarific Buttercream Fondant
• White Fondarific Buttercream Fondant
• Royal Icing
• Your favorite cupcake recipe
• Your favorite white frosting recipe (we love buttercream)
• Squeeze bottle with tip for decorating

Instructions:

1. Bake cupcakes according to instructions in Solid Black muffin cups. Let cool.
2. While cupcakes are cooling, prepare the frosting. Frost each cooled cupcake using a decorating bag or a spatula. You will want the frosting to be as smooth as possible, with no design or pattern.
3. Pour red and pastel blue sanding sugars into separate small bowls. Dip cupcakes into bowls of sanding sugar and tap off excess. You may need to manually touch up areas of the frosting so that a continuous layer of the sanding sugar exists. See picture for reference to smooth layer of sanding sugar.
4. Set cupcakes aside while you prepare the belt and scarf accents from fondant.
5. Roll out a small amount of colored fondant – roughly a 4" x 4" square. Mark off and cut strips of fondant approximately 4" long by 1/4th inch wide. Standard cupcake top is roughly 3" and this will give you a bit to wrap over the edge of the cupcake surface. Make an equal quantity of strips to correspond with the number of Santa and Frosty cupcakes you are preparing. Prepare strips of white fondant in the same manner – you will need only a few strips for the accents to the red scarves.
6. Gently lay the black belt strips across the red cupcakes and tuck under the sides of the cupcake – press gently to stick in place. Add accents for the belt buckle and button with royal icing dispensed from a squeeze bottle.
7. Using the picture of the Frosty cupcake as a guide, add strips of red and white fondant to the tops of the pastel blue cupcakes. Use a toothpick to fray the fondant for a fringe effect on the ends of the scarf.
8. Add Retro Holiday Stamp Picks to cupcakes to complete the Santa and Frosty cupcakes.
9. Display on a cake plate and serve.