Easy Cupcakes

For this little lion, all you need are candies — no special tips or tubes required. If you don’t have these exact candies, just pick something you do have.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted a deep yellow; chocolate sprinkles (mane); 2 large Wilton sprinkles (cheeks); 2 small white candies (eyes); brown mini M&M (nose); pink gel icing (mouth); 2 candy corns (ears); black food-safe pen.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle chocolate sprinkles around the entire edge of the cupcake for mane. Use black food-safe pen to write pupil on white candy eyes. Add candies to make face as shown.

One of the parents in my son’s kindergarten class made these awesome dragon cupcakes for her son’s birthday. (They could also be dinosaur cupcakes, with spikes for a stegosaurus, etc. Or, pair them with pirate cupcakes for an all-out boy theme.) She told me she used two different metal tips: a larger one to “flow” the dragon’s body and a smaller one. (Remember, multi-opening tip #233 is great for making animal hair or grass.) Consider a from-scratch icing recipe, because homemade icing is often thicker and easier to control than canned frosting.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; frosting tinted green; frosting tinted yellow; frosting tinted black (or premade in tube); metal tips; pastry bags; couplers.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Use large metal tip to “flow” green icing in shape of dragon. Taper off at tail by reducing the pressure as you squeeze. Pipe yellow points for spikes and two yellow dots for eyes. Add black pupils to eyes.

Inspired by a recent article in Family Fun magazine, these cute black-and-white cow cupcakes are a great addition to a barnyard or farm-themed birthday party, ho down, or any cupcake cattle call!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; 2 Junior Mints; 1 pick candy wafer; 2 mini brown M&Ms; 2 white jellybeans; black writing icing in tube.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use writing icing to make two dots on pink wafer for nostrils and place near center bottom of cupcake. Place Junior Mints, angled upward, near top of cupcake. Add jellybean horns and mini M&M eyes.

I like this lamb cupcake better than the marshmallow sheep I posted previously. By cutting the mini marshmallows in half (“shearing” the sheep, so to speak), you can make a cupcake that has dimension but isn’t overloaded.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; mini marshmallows; 2 brown mini M&Ms; 2 black candy-covered licorice pieces; red gel writing icing; kitchen shears or scissors.

How To Make It: Frost cupcake. Use scissors to cut each marshmallow in half and arrange as shown, circling the entire cupcake and then a couple of rows near the top. Add M&M eyes and licorice legs and then draw in the red mouth with gel icing.

A fuzzy-looking chick cupcake is great for Easter or barnyard parties. This design is very similar to one that ran in Family Fun magazine.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or yellow frosting; shaved coconut; yellow dye (liquid, gel or paste); gummy orange slice; chocolate chips; scissors or knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Tint coconut in a bowl or baggie by adding dye and mixing. Sprinkle on top of cupcake. Use scissors to cut off bit of orange slice and make beak shape. Place on cupcake. Add chocolate chip eyes.

Sure, you can just use colorful gummy worms to make tasty and gross cupcakes. But there’s something about a realistic candy earthworm that adds that extra “ew” factor. It even has a segment. I used Gummy Earthworms Candy by Gummies of All Shapes, made by the Iowa-based Foreign Candy Company.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; crumbled sandwich cookies (such as Oreo); candy rocks; gummy worm.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Crush cookies (a plastic bag works great) and sprinkle on top of cupcake. Add rocks and worm. Yum!

The bee on these beehive cupcakes is similar to a design by Martha Stewart, but canned frosting makes the hive extra easy.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting in aerosol can with star tip; 2 yellow M&Ms; 2 black M&Ms; 2 short lengths stiff black licorice; 2 almond slices; black food-safe pen.

How to Make It: Affix star tip to canned icing and, using a circular motion, create tall beehive on top of cupcake. Using dabs of icing, assemble bee as shown, with M&Ms alternating and almond slice wings on either side. (Use food-safe marker for eyes.) Place near top of cupcake.