Easy Cupcakes

Santa beard cupcakes

If you like frosting, you’ll like this Santa cupcake in which Mr. Claus sports a generous beard.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; red sugar or sprinkles; 2 black or brown M&Ms; 1 red hot candy (cinnamon imperial); pastry bag and star tip, or tube icing with star tip, or aerosol can icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Spinkle some red sugar near top of cupcake for hat. With star tip, add hat brim and pom pom. Then, add beard. Add M&M eyes and red hot nose.

Holly Berry cupcake

Don’t be intimidated by the leaf! It’s not hard use a metal decorating tip and pastry bag, but you can also just premade icing in a tube with screw-on leaf tip.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; icing tinted green (I used Pillsbury holiday frosting in a can, already green) 3 sour cherry balls; pastry bag with leaf tip #67 or similar.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Add 3 cherry balls for berries. Load green icing into pastry bag and add coupler and tip (or use tube). Gently and steadily squeeze to make two leaves. Stop squeezing before you pull away. If the tips of your leaves are separated, push them together with a toothpick or small paintbrush.

Menorah cupcake

Celebrate Hanuakkah with this very easy menorah cupcake. By using gel icing in a tube, you can avoid the trouble and mess of pastry bags.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; blue gel icing in a tube; chocolate covered sunflower seeds (yellow).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use tube icing to draw menorah, with the candle in the center higher than the rest. Add nine yellow, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, point side down, for “flames.”

Earmuff Snowman cupcake

This snowman is chilly, but thankfully he brought his earmuffs (in the form of cherry LifeSavers.) These cupcakes are easy to make, especially for kids, because all you do is place the candy on the cupcake!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; 2 black or brown M&Ms; 2 red LifeSavers candies; strand of red licorice; 1 orange candy (I used something called a Cry Baby, but you could also try candy corn or part of an orange candy slice.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add M&M eyes and candy nose. Place LifeSavers at sides of face for earmuffs and connect with strand of red licorice. You can add a mouth if you’d like, but I thought my Frosty looked cute without.

Christmas candy corn

If you’re pressed for time this holiday season but want cute, colorful cupcakes, candy corn and red hots may the be answer. Arranged just so, they look like flowers!

What You Need: white frosting; 6 Christmas candy corns; 1 red hot (cinnamon imperial).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Place red hot in center of cupcake. Surround with candy corn.

Fall tree

For Thanksgiving or any fall party, consider these easy trees complete with autumn leaves. You’ll need a pastry bag and leaf-shaped sprinkles, which can be found in those multi-pack, seasonal sprinkle containers at grocery stores, or year-round and baking supply stores.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white icing; chocolate icing; leaf sprinkles; pastry bag; round metal tip (#3 is good).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Fill pastry bag halfway with chocolate frosting and attach tip and coupler. Squeeze lines to make a tree trunk and branches. Then, either sprinkle on leaves or place them deliberately.

Turkey wattle cupcake

What would a turkey be without a wattle? (Or waddle, as I always thought it was spelled.) Thanks to decorating gel in a tube, you can outfit your Thanksgiving turkey cupcakes with one.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 6 candy corns; 2 candy eyes (or just use small candies); yellow writing icing in premade tube or pastry bag; red gel writing icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Load chocolate frosting into a pastry bag fitted with a #12 metal tip and coupler. Pipe large blob for neck and smaller blob for head. Add eyes. Use yellow writing icing to draw beak. Use red gel for wattle. Stick 3 candy corn on each side of cupcake for feathers.