Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Merry (early) Christmas!!   I am sharing with you my favorite cupcakes and one of my favorite recipes.  I made them for a work party last year and everyone went crazy for them!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcake Ingredients:
1 box Dark Chocolate Cake mix
1 cup buttermilk (in place of water)
1 tsp  Mint Extract
Oil called for on box
Eggs called for on box + 1
Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels

Materials:
2 cans Green Vanilla Frosting (Around the holidays you can find it)
Mint Truffle Hersey Kisses You can substitute with regular Hershey Kisses
Wilton Light Bulb Sprinkles*
Cupcake and Mini-cupcake liners

*Note: These Light Bulb sprinkles are currently unavailable.  You used to be able to find them in stores this time of year.  These are my favorites, but clearly some substitutions are needed!  Here are a few below, any colorful sprinkles may work as a good substitution.
Here are a couple of options:
A Red, White and Green light bulb sprinkle set: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=F1EF0301-92EA-11C7-96FEB9A05A3E4D1C
Christmas Light Candies: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=CAB4995A-A6BA-207B-2DBF42F1675D3B20&fid=AE791991-B433-1DA2-BE03952D8F4E9050

Recipe:
Place all cake ingredients except for the morsels in a large bowl.  Mix according to the directions on the box. Once cake is mixed stir in about 1 cup of morsels.  Then pour batter into lined muffin and mini muffin pans.  Make sure to make an equal amount, I got about 18 of each.  Since you don't need the mini-cupcake liners then you can choose to grease the pan instead.

Assembly:
I am still kicking myself for not taking more pictures while I was making these!  Here is a diagram of the "tree".

Place the unwrapped mini-cupcake upside down on top of the cupcake, next place the unwrapped Hershey kiss on top.

Frosting
You will need a piping bag with a small star tip.  Place frosting in bag.  Starting at the bottom of the "tree" and moving around the whole cupcake.  Squeeze the bag against the cupcake and drag to make each branch.  I wish I had a video tutorial for this!

Decorating
Now is the fun part!  Time to trim the tree. Take whatever sprinkles you choose and place on the tree one by one.  Yes it is slow, but the result is worth it.

Merry Christmas to you and your family!  If you're ambitious enough to make these, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!