Easy Cupcakes

In honor of the start of the college and NFL football seasons, make these cupcakes using foil-wrapped chocolate footballs and paper flag picks. Or, serve them at your Super Bowl party!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; red, white, and blue star sprinkles; paper flag; foil-wrapped chocolate football.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Insert flag pick and rest football next to it. Sprinkle a few stars.

For any summer party, including Fourth of July festivities, consider these easy, somewhat abstract watermelon cupcakes. The “seeds” are chocolate sprinkles!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green cupcake liner; frosting tinted green; white frosting; red sugar sprinkles; chocolate sprinkles.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake green. Drop and spread a dollop of white frosting to about half an inch from the edge. Sprinkle with red sugar, almost to edge of white. Add chocolate sprinkles for watermelon seeds.

With a 1M swirl tip and star sprinkles, you can make a simple yet pretty cupcake for the Fourth of July! With this technique, it’s easy to make a lot of cupcakes quickly.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white icing (if you like this look – shorter and softer – using canned Fluffy style icing and room temperature); star sprinkles; 1M swirl metal tip and pastry bag.

How to Make It: With 1M tip, apply icing in a circular motion, working inward and upward. Sprinkle with stars.

Little paper flags instantly turn any red, white and blue cupcake into an Independence Day celebration.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting (I used “fluffy” by Pillsbury); red sugar; blue star sprinkles; paper American flag.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake generously. Sprinkle with red sugar and blue stars. Add American flag.

For Election Day, Fourth of July or any patriotic occasion, these red, white and blue flower cupcakes add prettiness to the party.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; blue candy-covered sunflower seeds; red hot candies (cinnamon imperials).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Arrange blue sunflower seeds, point facing inward, around red hots.

Planning an election night party? Or, perhaps you’re reading this post after the Nov. 4, 2008 presidential election and want to decorate cupcakes for the Fourth of July or another patriotic event. This flag cupcakes fit the bill! Whether you’re for Obama, McCain or even Nadar, there’s one thing we can all agree on: Cupcakes are yummy.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted red (use no-taste red paste food coloring if you can); icing in aerosol can such as Betty Crocker’s (or use pastry bag and ribbon tip); large blue confetti stars.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake red. Attach ribbon tip to icing can and draw stripes across the cupcake, leaving a square at the top left area for the stars. Add blue stars.

The U.S. presidential race is heating up, but you can cool tempers with a nice batch of cupcakes urging people to get out and vote. Also suitable for class elections, local primaries and so on. Remember, everyone loves cupcakes–they’re nonpartisan.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white icing; red gel writing icing; premade American flag cake decoration (such as by Cake Mate or Wilton).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use writing gel to write “VOTE” in red. Or, write a candidate’s name. (You could also use writing icing in a tube or pastry bag). Add flag decoration.