Merry Christmas Ornament Cupcakes

Merry Christmas!
Yes, I am aware that Christmas is in fact over, however, we were so busy that I had no time to be able to post anything during the holidays.

I'm not sure what your family does, but for us, with no family here in this state, Christmas is day of simply hanging out. I love it. No pressure, no stress. Just fun. This Christmas was made even better when we received a foot of snow. Most people here complained, but our family was in heaven! Long days of shoveling, building and sledding, hot cocoa, marshmallows, and hot tubbing. Darn near a perfect weekend to celebrate the King of Kings coming here to Earth. I hope your Christmas was as blessed as ours.

Now I am normally a cake lady. I love the aspect of taking cake, and building with it- creating things that you wouldn't have though a cake could do. For this reason I don't do a lot of cupcakes. They aren't my forte. I did however branch out this year and make these cupcakes.

They were made 2 different ways. The first way was to cut large circles out of fondant, and set them into my "mold" (which was a mini ball pan- 6 1/2 balls per pan) then set that in the fridge for about 10 minutes. Pull them out carefully slide them out- they should be set in a dome shape, pipe some icing onto my cupcake, and then set the "cap" (molded fondant dome). I put mine back into the fridge for a few more minutes before decorating.

The second way I tried was actually baking little cakes into the miniball pan, (not filled full at all), then leveling off my cupcakes, attaching my dome cake with icing, icing the dome itself, then cutting circles of fondant and laying it down as you would on any cake. I also allowed these to set in the fridge a few minutes before piping on them.

Now, after trying both ways, I'm inclined to say I really like the first method the best. They looked better, cleaner, and were much less time then the second way. But the second way left me with bigger more impressive cupcakes.

Both sets I piped with royal icing, allowed that to dry, then painted the icing with various luster dusts. To make the hangers I rolled fondant out think- cut with a small circle cutter, then used a small sharp knife to indent the sides. I pushed a skewer through the middle to make a hole, then used tiny fondant rolls to make the actual hoops. Attach the hoops to the hanger bottom w/ royal and painted with luster.

Either way, I encourage you to try this. They were so cute- impressive and perfect for celebrating the season. They are time consuming as the details and small trival part take some time, but the wow factor will be worth it!