Tutorial: Christmas Ornaments Cupcakes

SHOPPING LIST:
For the cupcakes: foil cupcake standard size liners, and any cupcake recipe of your choice.
For the Oreo cream cheese cookie dough truffle tops: 38 traditional Oreo cookies + 1 package of Philadelphia cream cheese (either 8 oz or 250 g work well). Makes about 8 domes.

Note: you may substitute this cookie dough recipe with your favorite cake truffle dough recipe if you want.

For the decorations: rolled fondant, small rolling pin, small knife, tweezers, scissors, some corn starch for rolling, gel paste food colors of your choice to color fondant, some luster dusts (pearl, gold, silver), clear food grade alcohol for mixing the paint, various sugar sprinkles and sugar pearls, clear piping gel, small spray bottle, art brushes, Dessert Dome Candy Mold by Wilton, snowflake paper punches.
You may find most of the cake decorating supplies at any Michael’s art and craft store.

Step 1: Bake your cupcakes according to your recipe, filling the cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Let cool, drizzle with simple syrup or flavorful alcohol and fill with your favorite butter cream or any other filling if you want. Chill in refrigerator.

Step 2: Prepare Oreo cream cheese cookie dough truffle mixture for the domes. Crush Oreo cookies in a food processor and mix with cream cheese until blended. Set aside.

Step 3: Un-wrap the Dessert Dome Candy Mold. You will find 2 clear plastic plates with 6 semi-sphere cavities each, one slightly larger in diameter then the other. We will need the larger one, and only 2 of its larger cavities. They fit the cupcake tops just perfectly!

Lightly dust these larger cavities with cornstarch and shake off the excess.

Note: if you can”t find the dome candy molds, try finding any other suitable semi-sphere molds of the suitable size available. Clear plastic 2-part Christmas ornaments at craft shops, or 2-part clear ball-shaped picture frames will work equally well.

Step4: Lightly dust your table with corn starch and roll out 2 pieces of fondant to about 1/16” (2 mm) thickness.

Lay them inside two of the larger cavities and fill with your Oreo cream cheese cookie dough. If your cupcakes baked with a dome on top, compensate this by making a small cavity in cookie dough filling by pressing it in the middle to make it lower. Compact your dough well, pressing firmly with your fingers.

Use a small knife to trim excess fondant around the edge leaving about ¼”overhang untouched. Place into freezer for 20 minutes to firm up the domes.

Step 5: After 20 minutes quickly unmold the domes by flipping the mold upside down on the table. With clean dry hands place the dome on the top of cupcake and cut the excess fondant around the base using small scissors. Smooth down the bottom of the dome with your fingers.

Step 6: To create shiny glass-like finish on the ball mix white pearl dust with some clear alcohol (vodka or white rum works best) and pour mixture into a small spray bottle. Shake well and spray on to the surface evenly. The surface will become wet. Let the alcohol evaporate and surface air dry for an hour or two or even overnight before continuing.

Be very careful and do not touch the surface with your fingers because you may leave finger marks.

Step 7: While the cupcakes are drying, let us make golden bails for the ornaments.
Knead some golden-yellow fondant, roll into a ½” diameter snake and cut into equal cylinder-like pieces.

Pinch each cylinder with tweezers all around the sides, holding the cylinder parallel to the surface and pinching them vertically on the sides.

Poke 2 holes on top of each cylinder using back side of a paint brush.

Roll out a 1/16” diameter snake out of  a piece of fondant, cut it into 1” pieces, form each one into U-shape. Apply a small drop of water into each hole on the cylinder top and insert the bail.

Let dry and paint with gold luster.

To make a luster paint mix gold pearl dust with some clear alcohol until you have a mercury-like consistency. Apply with paint brush. Note: you may get a true gold luster called “highlighter” in specialty cake decorating stores only, but regular gold luster dust from a craft shop will work, too.

Step 8: To make a faux crushed ice effect on edible Christmas ornament use clear or colored sugar sprinkles. The crystals are much larger and more defined than in regular sugar and therefore they reflect light better, creating a nice sparkling effect when light hits the surface. To apply sprinkles, generously brush the surface of the ball with clear piping gel, and shake sugar crystals all over the surface, distributing them evenly. Any excess sugar will simply fall off.


Note: to add even more sparkle, purchase edible foil-like glitter dusts (called Disco dust, Rainbow dust or Hologram) from specialty cake decorating stores. Apply over sugar layer with clean dry puffy brush.

Step 9: To make snowflakes, roll out your fondant paper-thin. The thinner the better, otherwise it will not fit into a paper punch slot.

Let air dry on the table for 20 minutes before using with paper punches, otherwise it will stick to the cutting blade and may even block it. Use golden-yellow fondant for gold snowflakes, and light gray for silver.

Step 10: Carefully place your designs on to a tacky surface of the ball. Make sure you do not touch the surface with your fingers. Paint with gold, silver, or white luster dust paint using a fine brush.

Apply gold and silver pearls using tweezers.

Put the bail on top, securing it with a bit of piping gel, and you are done!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of you!



And don’t forget to share the joy of Holiday cupcake decorating with your kids, they’ll love you for