Easy Christmas Holly Cupcakes Recipe

These easy Christmas holly cupcakes are a cinch to make and are festive additions to any Christmas celebration. They’re such a simple holiday cupcake that you can have them decorated and ready to serve with minimal time and effort.

If you need a quick and beautiful cupcake for a Christmas party, you definitely have to make these awesome holly cupcakes.

Jump to:

• Ingredients Needed
• Equipment Needed
• Instructions
• 📋 Recipe

Now, the thing about making these holly cupcakes is that you have to have a leaf tip. But not just any leaf tip–you need a tiny one. I found mine at the grocery store.

It came with decorating frosting, along with several other tips. Just look for a can like this at your local store.

Ingredients Needed

• 1 box vanilla cake mix (plus ingredients needed to make)
• 1 can vanilla frosting
• Red ball sprinkles
• Gold ball sprinkles
• Green writing icing 

You’ll notice I’ve simplified the baking in this recipe by starting with boxed cake mix and prepared frosting, like in my Heavenly Cupcake Angels. If you’re willing to devote a little extra time and effort, I recommend using this recipe for moist vanilla cupcakes and this recipe for vanilla buttercream frosting.

However, if you’re like me and just want the credit for making a homemade treat without making the time and manual labor investment, you can accomplish that by following my recipe as written. There’s no shame in this mom’s game.

Equipment Needed

• Mixer
• Cupcake liners
• Tiny leaf piping tip
• Decorating bag
• Large star piping tip

If you don’t already have a set of cake decorating tips, I encourage you to get one. They aren’t expensive and having them on hand will open up a world of fun decorating opportunities!

This kit comes with 36 tips and is highly rated. For less than a dollar more, you could snag this set and score an extra 12 decorating tips.

If you have zero interest in learning how to pipe frosting into clever designs, don’t worry. I’ve linked to a couple of options in step 4 that will let you bypass the delicate piping of the holly leaves.

Instructions

Step 1

Prepare cupcakes according to package directions. Allow to cool completely.

Step 2

Place frosting in piping bag. Attach large star tip and frost each cupcake starting on the outer edge, circling in to the center.

Step 3

Add 2-3 red ball sprinkles to one side of the cupcake.

Step 4

Place the small leaf decorating tip onto your green writing icing and pipe out two leaves on either side of the red ball sprinkles.

If you can’t find the small leaf tip, don’t want to invest in one, or simply want an easier option, you can buy preformed edible holly leaves like these candy ones or these royal icing ones.

Step 5

Add gold ball sprinkles over the rest of the cupcake.

Enjoy!

📋 Recipe

If you love this easy holly Christmas cupcake recipe, but you’re not quite ready to heat up the oven, just pin this to your favorite cupcake recipes board on Pinterest so you can find it quick later!