Transform Vanilla Cupcake Mix for the Holidays- 3 Simple Topper Designs

Happy Holidays!! Today, we are sharing 3 simple ideas for transforming vanilla cake mix into festive holiday cupcakes. I love concepts that add visual interest to any dessert table or party spread that are fun, whimsical and easy to replicate!!

Our first cupcake design plays on the concept of “Believing”, featuring little North Pole cupcake toppers. To replicate the look at home, simply trim red and white striped paper straws in half, push through the center of your cupcake slightly, and add the FREE printable North Pole tags found at the bottom of this blog post.

For our 2nd project, we created DIY Christmas tree cupcakes using a vanilla cupcake base, a sugar ice cream cone and green frosting with a star tip attachment. To replicate this look, center the sugar cone atop the cupcake with a small base layer of icing. Using your star tip attachment for green icing, work your way from the bottom to the top of the ice cream cone placing stars in a 360 fashion on the cone.

If you wanted to take this concept further, you could add M&M chocolate candies around the tree to resemble ornaments and a yellow one on top to mimic a star topper. Or, you could dust the tree with powdered sugar for a ‘frosted’ effect.

For this fun project, we couldn’t leave out one of my favorite holidays…New Year’s Eve. For a simple, yet festive New Year’s Eve cupcake, add mini honeycomb balls to tooth pics using double sided tape or scrap booking tape for a fun topper. For more New Year’s Eve ideas, head over to our blog post for Evite.

For each of our DIY concepts, we started with a delicious vanilla cupcake recipe using a simple boxed cake mix. When you start out with a great base, virtually anything your imagination can conceive is possible when it comes to cupcake creation.