An easy to follow STEP BY STEP (GIF & Printable) frosting guide for awesome Santa Claus Cupcakes (Christmas cupcakes) with a cream cheese frosting decoration!
Updated: December 2016
Spoiler Alert!
Santa isn’t real. No, really. I know how you’re feeling. And do you know how I felt about it when I first realized this earth-shattering fact of a child’s life? Overwhelming relief, that’s what. I mean how traumatic is it to know that there’s a guy who sneaks into people’s houses at night, down through the chimney and leaves things in their living room, and that your parents not only condoned such behavior but they were positively gleeful about it?
But hey, that never stopped me from enjoying the holidays and celebrating Santa’s spirit! I love a holiday just as much as the next person. And even though I never celebrated Christmas, I found all those bright lights, decorations, food and the holiday cheer to be fun and contagious!
I first published these Santa Claus cupcakes in 2014 as part of a Doctor Who Christmas series, called Time Lord Chefs. That time I made tangerine curd filled Santa Claus cupcakes to celebrate the Doctor Who Christmas special.
Santa Claus Cupcakes from 2014
I do love Doctor Who and I have the evidence to back it up.
Basil Vanilla Cake “Fish Fingers” and Custard
Raspberry gelee Mini Cheesecake “Fezzes”
Half Face Man, Clockwork droid Sculpted cake
But as much as I love Doctor Who, I decided to give these cupcakes a well-deserved holiday upgrade.
So how did I make these Santa Claus cupcakes even more Christmassy? Instead of vanilla cupcakes with tangerine curd, this time I made Gingerbread Cupcakes with an eggnog pastry cream center and cream cheese frosting! So much YUM!
The recipe for those gingerbread cupcakes will be shared on the blog very soon, but here I’ll be sharing this tutorial on how to make an AWESOME frosting Santa Claus cupcake decoration!
You can make these Santa Claus cupcakes with any kind of cupcake and any kind of WHITE frosting. It’s also important to have a frosting that’s fairly stiff, so that it holds its shape when piped. Otherwise you end up with a blob that’ll look more like Jabba the Hutt wearing a Santa Claus costume. Not ideal, not good.
In order to get a stiff frosting, you need to add more confectioner’s sugar or you can use Swiss meringue buttercream too.
I prefer cream cheese frosting because – I love the taste, it’s easier to whip up, and because of that tangy flavor, you can add extra confectioner’s sugar and it won’t make it sickly sweet (compared to an all butter stiff frosting).
You will also need 4 types of round tips (Wilton) for these Christmas cupcakes.
- Tip 1A for the red body of Santa
- Tip 2A for the flesh colored face
- Tip 4 for the red hat
- Tip 3 or 2 for Santa’s white hair and beard and other small decorations
- You’ll also need toothpicks with black food coloring for Santa’s eyes.
I made these Christmas cupcakes along with Snowmen cupcakes as well, which was also really easy! So the detailed tutorial will have instructions for both.
- 8 oz (226g) cream cheese, softened
- 6 oz (170g) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 lbs (900 - 907g) confectioner's sugar, sifted
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- Red gel coloring
- Flesh-colored gel coloring
- Black gel coloring
- 8 cupcakes
- 7 piping bags
- Place the butter and cream cheese in a stand mixer bowl and using a whisk attachment, whisk until the butter and cream cheese mix is light and fluffy.
- Add the salt and vanilla, and whip to combine.
- Add the confectioner's sugar in batches and mix on low speed until all is combined. Scrape the sides to make sure the frosting is mixed properly.
- Whip the frosting on medium high speed until light, fluffy and creamy.
- Divide the frosting roughly into two, ½ portions (one generous ½ portion, and another portion just under one half).
- Color the generous ½ of the frosting with red gel coloring. Transfer this frosting into a piping bag and set aside.
- Divide the other ½ of frosting into 2 more portions. Color one portion with the flesh-colored gel coloring. Leave the rest white.Transfer each of these colored frosting portions into piping bags and set aside.
- Cut the tips off the remaining piping bags and fit piping tips in each of these. You can place the frosting filled piping bags inside the piping tip bag as needed when decorating the cupcakes.
P.S. – a few of my cupcakes got squashed in the process of my taking photographs! 🙂 While I was devastated at first, going back and looking at the pictures made me laugh hysterically and I just had to share with you guys. It’s almost like squashed Santas are begging to be put out of their misery!
I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season and a happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and all other holiday celebrations coming your way! Thank you so much being such an integral part of The Flavor Bender this year, and I hope you stick with me in 2017 too! There’s never a dearth of fabulous recipes in the Flavor Bender kitchen! 🙂
If you liked this Santa Claus cupcakes (Christmas cupcakes) recipe, don’t forget to subscribe for new (and free) recipes by entering your email address on the side bar (and get all these recipes delivered straight to your inbox), so you don’t miss out on a thing. You can find me on FACEBOOK, TWITTER,INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST, YOU TUBE and GOOGLE-PLUS too.
I’ll be sharing my recipe over at –
Dini, your Santas are absolutely adorable! You have gone way above and beyond with your tutorials!! Photos, videos, and illustrations! Wow. Thank goodness you had so many great photos before the Santas got run over by the sleigh! Wishing you a joyous, peace-filled holiday!
Oh my gosh, SO stinking cute! So thankful you’ve shared your talents with us!! Can’t wait to try this out!
I love that you remade the pics and you created a printable! These are so adorable! I’ll even take the smushed santa. Smushed santas need love too!
This is fabulous! I love it. Pinned and tweeted. Thanks for being a part of our party! I hope you stop by on Monday at 7 pm. We love to party with you. Merry Christmas! Lou Lou Girls
Thank you! 🙂 I loved joining Lou Lou girls last week and already linked up this week! Merry Christmas to you too 🙂 xx
Only four sleeps left until the Christmas special! What a great way to celebrate! #sitsblogging
Love the Doctor Who inspiration! The cupcakes look amazing 🙂
Dini, you are so talented. These cupcakes are so beautiful!!
Thank you Jhuls! 😀
They are so pretty
Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto Bene! The evil snowmen ones are dead accurate. Love it!
Yum – I love citrus at this time of year to cut through all the richness – your cupcakes sound amazing!
Impressive decorating skills as usual Dini. Your Santas are fabulous and how wonderfully on-trend with the sneak peaks we’ve had of the upcoming Christmas special. Getting excited! 😀
Thank you Vohn! I feel the same way – I love how citrus cuts through the richness and sweetness too! I love your cookies though 🙂 Your cookie decorating skills are awesome!!
These are so great!!!! I love the cupcakes and i love the illustrations!
Thank you Ganu! 🙂 This time you should make these for Christmas!!
How creative are these?!! I love them!
Thank you Michelle! 🙂
Dini,
These are AWESOME! Hats off to your amazing talent!
Thank you Sandhya! You’re making me blush! :p
These are just so darned cute!
Haha! Thank you Julie! 🙂
Lovely! Thanks a lot for all these tips you gave us… very helpful! Thanks a lot for being at FF!
Thank you Margy! 🙂 I love being a part of FF!
These are SO cute! And I love how detailed your instructions are 🙂
Thank you Claudia! I had fun doing my first “illustration”! haha!
LOVE these! The are so cute and the flavors sound amazing 🙂 Can’t wait to try them out at our house!
Thank you Jordyn! Please let me know how they come out! I would love to see it 🙂
Ho, Ho, Ho to you too and thanks for sharing these rather cute cupcakes with FF #46. We all appreciate the details you have given, so often we are left to figure things out on our own! I like David Lebovitz too as he has terrific recipes and I enjoy reading about his experiences in Paris. Have you read his “The Sweet Life in Paris”. The snowmen reminded me of the Abominable Snowman in “Rudolph-The Red Nosed Reindeer”. How appropriate – they are giving me ideas not only for Christmas but Halloween 🙂
Thank you Judi! 🙂 I haven’t yet bought his book yet! (It’s on the Christmas List though!) but I LOVE his blog and love reading his articles.
The snowmen did remind me of the Abominable Snowmen too. Making them scary looking sort of merged both holidays together! hahaha!!
I love how detailed your directions are to make the Santa cupcake. I feel like I could do it now too. Although that may be some false confidence! Happy FF, and have a fantastic weekend. 🙂
Thank you Kaila! It is deceptively easy to make and alot of fun! I messed up a few santas and they still turned out pretty good looking because you can easily cover up mistakes! (But don’t tell anyone that!) 🙂
These are so awesome Dini! I saw you post them on instagram and meant to come check it out immediately, but naturally I got distracted! So I’m glad you shared these at #foodiefridays to give me a kick up the butt!
I’m extra happy that you shared a really detailed how to for the frosting santas – still crazy impressive!
Thank you Michelle! 🙂 Though I didn’t mean to give you a kick in the butt! haha!! It’s actually alot easier than it seems! Even the wonky looking Santas looked presentable!
Your decorating and baking skills continue to amaze! I love citrus flavors in cakes. Your instructions are so attractive and well done. Bravo! Can’t wait to add this to the Time Lord Chefs roundup!
Hey Katie! Thank you! I love lemon (or any kind of citrus) in anything too. It’s only second to Chocolate 🙂 Looking forward to the round up and seeing what others made too! 🙂
AWESOME!!! Those look absolutely amazing 🙂 This challenge has been so fun…and stressful LOL
Thank you Anne Marie! 🙂 It was fun! I went for a less stressful one after the last challenge 😀 haha!
Can’t wait to see what you’ve made!!
Oooh… I’m in suspense! What will it be??? 🙂