Cupcakes

Dreamy Vanilla Christmas Tree Cupcakes

A little forest of yum

As we move into the final days before Christmas, I imagine that your holiday baking agendas are already full. That’s cool. Mine certainly was for my holiday party. Every year, I like to make a mix of old, traditional Horvath holiday favorites and new recipes. One of my favorites from this season are these possibly-overly-cutesy-but-outrageously-delicious vanilla Christmas tree cupcakes.

Aerial shot

The reallybeautiful thing about this recipe is that it doesn’t have to happen at Christmas AT ALL. It’s simply a vanilla cupcake with whipped cream icing, and therefore is appropriate in all scenarios in the universe. What, you say, another vanilla cupcake? Doesn’t the world have enough of those?

No.

Never.

And these vanilla cupcakes are a step above any I’ve had before. They are the softest, fluffiest, smoothest, vanilla-y-est cupcakes, and the clouds of simple whipped cream atop them offer just the right touch. What makes these cupcakes better than anything else? A secret ingredient: whipped cream, folded into the batter ITSELF, in addition to the icing that will finish these little bites of heaven.

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Harry Potter Cauldron Cakes

Fair warning.

This is gonna be awesome. Nerdy awesome. Which is the best kind.

Just in case you live, um, on a planet with no movies or internet or books or newspapers, the final installment of the Harry Potter films is coming out on Friday. This is cause for a party.

A new friend of mine threw one such celebration last Friday (costumes required, duh), and I couldn’t resist cooking something from the books to take to share. But what!? So many options!

I settled on cauldron cakes. I wasn’t sure exactly what these are supposed to look like, but after a bit of perusing ideas on the interwebs, I came up with a plan. I’m pleased to say that I think it turned out well.

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