Snow Globe Coca-Cola Cupcakes

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Did I get your attention? I hope so. Because I’m guest blogging today on the website, Cupcakes Take the Cake ^[2]! And to celebrate the occasion, I’m also having a giveaway on their blog. Visit them now ^[3] and enter to win the most awesome baking cups ever (It’s really easy). This giveaway is shorter and ends Tuesday at midnight ET. I’ll announce the winner Wednesday morning right here on bakerella.com.

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Now, if you stuck around, let me tell you about the cupcakes, just in case you don’t jump over to enter the giveaway ^[3].

The idea for these started with some really cute bottles of Coke that I bought from Wal-Mart recently. I had been trying to think of a way to make a snow globe cupcake for the holidays and these were just the perfect shape. And not only that, they also ended up being the inspiration for the actual cupcake design. Because what’s cuter than polar bears and Coca-Cola at Christmas. Well, probably lots of things, but that’s besides the point.

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So, I took the labels off and cut off the tops with a box cutter. Actually, I asked someone with really strong, steady hands to do it for me. It took several attempts to get the opening the right size. About 2 1/4 inches in diameter seems to be pretty good.

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With the theme in my mind, I remembered some cola-shaped gummy candies I had been eyeballing at the store recently. Now, I had a reason to buy them. So, off to Walgreen’s I went. (That’s a drugstore if you’re not familiar.)

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And, since the theme would be based on the Coke Polar bears, I decided to tie it all together with a recipe for Cola Cake, straight from the source.

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You can download a pdf of the recipe from Coca-Cola’s website. Go here ^[10] and scroll down until you see Cola Cake. Click on the link and it will open a pdf that you can print. These were really good. I didn’t make the chocolate frosting they recommended with it because I needed snow. So, I used the buttercream frosting ^[11] one that I use all the time and it worked perfectly.

Now, I had about 28 cupcakes in awesome red baking cups from confectioneryhouse.com ^[12], but I only used a few for the actual scene.

To make the bear:
I used rolled fondant ^[13] and hand shaped the parts – similar to how I did this Care Bear Cupcake ^[14] a while back except the polar bear is only about 2 inches tall. The eyes were black non-pareils and the noses were black candy heart sprinkles. The mouth was drawn with my ever-so-handy Americolor Edible Black Writing Pen ^[15]. For the scarf, I bought red fondant ^[16] this time, because it’s really hard to get the color deep red and I didn’t feel like mixing it and having my hands look stained.

To assemble the snow globe:
Make a sugar water spray (recipe here ^[11]). Lightly mist the inside of the plastic bottle in the areas you want snow. Then, carefully sprinkle sugar inside. You will mostly want it on the sides, bottom, and back. Not too much in the front because you’ll want to see your design. Set the snow globe top aside.

Take one of your cupcakes, turn it upside down and carefully cut the bottom of the baking cup off. Then spread some buttercream frosting on the bottom (now, top) of your cupcake. Then, sprinkle some white sanding sugar ^[17] on top of the frosting for texture. Place your assembled fondant bear right in the middle and attach one of the cola bottles with a little bit of water to help it stick. Then place the opening of the bottle right over the bear. The opening should be just large enough to rest on the cupcake without sliding all the way over it, like below.

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To make the Coke bottle boxes and sign:
I used more red fondant ^[16], rolled and shaped as necessary. I used the edible black ink pen ^[15] for the lettering and some snowflake sprinkles ^[19] to embellish. The signposts were really small candy canes.

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I think that’s it. Anyway, I hope you like them and don’t forget to visit Cupcakes Take the Cake ^[3] to win a set of these awesome baking cups. You’ll love them!

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Congratulations Lisa! I hope you make lots of cute cupcakes with your new baking cups. And Merry Christmas to you, too!