Christmas Tree Mini Cupcakes

These are a delicious treat for the holidays, after a day the juice from the strawberry gets absorbed by the cupcake. Yummy!

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups pastry flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 0.3333333333333333 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup water
• 0.5 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup vanilla frosting, or as desired
• 1 drop green food coloring, or as desired
• 48 small strawberries, hulled
• 0.25 cup round red candies, or as desired
• star-shaped candies

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease mini muffin cups or line with paper liners.
2. Mix pastry flour, white sugar, and cocoa powder together in a bowl; add water, oil, and vanilla extract and blend until batter is smooth. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 8 to 12 minutes. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes.
4. Mix frosting and green food coloring together in a bowl until evenly combined. Transfer frosting to a pipe bag or plastic bag with a snipped corner; refrigerate for 5 minutes.
5. Squeeze a small amount of frosting onto the hulled side of each strawberry and place each onto a cupcake so the strawberry is in the shape of a tree. Pipe frosting onto each strawberry to look like leaves. Add candies to the "tree" to look like ornaments and place a star-shaped candy on top of each "tree".