Easy Cupcakes

Looking for an easy way to construct pilgrim hats this Thanksgiving? Just arrange candies and a cookie!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting; leaf-shaped sprinkles (optional); Oreo or other sandwich cookie; mini Reese’s peanut butter cup; red fruit roll; yellow (lemon) Starburst candy; knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with leaf sprinkles. Using dab of icing, secure wider side of unwrapped Reese’s cup to center of Oreo half. With knife, cut thin (appox. 1/4″) strip of fruit roll and wrap around base of Reese’s cup. Using clean hands, mold bit of Starburst into a “snake” shape, flatten, and bend into a square for buckle. (Pinch edges to make it more square.

Thanksgiving guests will gobble up these turkey cupcakes, which are made with mint patties and sliced almonds.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting; 1 thin mint patty (such as by Necco); Junior Mint; about 15 almond slices; candy eyes (or just use mini M&Ms or white icing); red writing icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake yellow. Place larger mint at center of cupcake. Using dab of icing as “glue,” put Junior Mint on larger mint for head. Add eyes and squeeze small line of red icing for wattle. Arrange sliced almonds in rows behind larger mint for feathers.

Celebrate fall with these easy cupcakes that pair an edible rake with falling leaves. They’re great for harvest festivals and other autumn events.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting; stick pretzel; chocolate Twizzler; leaf-shaped sprinkles (such as by Wilton); scissors or kitchen shears.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Break about one-quarter of the pretzel stick off and discard (or eat). Cut about a 1-inch length of Twizzler. Insert scissors into Twizzler (it’s hollow) and make about six cuts around, about two-thirds up. Poke broken end of pretzel into intact end of Twizzler and fan out ends to look like a broom. Place on cupcake. Add leaves to “ground” and “air.”

This acorn cupcake idea was first seen in the hit book Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make. I made some for my kid’s autumn-themed bake sale and they were a big hit. They’d be great for Thanksgiving, a nut (or Nutella!) cupcake recipe or any fall festivity.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white frosting; chocolate frosting; 2 Hershey’s kisses; 2 mini Nilla Wafers; pastry bag and round tip (No. 2 or 3, or just use premade icing in a tube or bag).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Use bit of chocolate frosting to attach mini vanilla wafer cookie to base of unwrapped Hershey’s Kiss. Use pastry bag or tube to add chocolate “stem” to wafer.

These pink pig cupcakes get their sweet, textured ears from sugar wafer cookies with waffle pattern.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted pink; pink sugar wafer cookie; large pink candy-coated mint or similar pink candy; 2 blue mini M&Ms; white icing in tube or pastry bag; knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use knife to cut cookies into triangle shapes and place near top of pig’s head for ears. Pipe 2 white dots on pink candy for nose and place in center of face. Add M&M eyes.