Easy Cupcakes

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.

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.

Santa hat cupcake

There’s a huge amount of frosting on this cupcake, so prepare for a Santa-themed sugar shock. There are several ways you could approach a Santa hat design, but I didn’t feel like getting out the pastry bag and 1M swirl tip, so I just piled on the red frosting and whipped out my can of Betty Crocker Decorating Cupcake Icing.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted red (use no-taste red in paste form for best results); white aerosol icing.

How to Make It: Pile on a nice, tall mound of red icing. Use aerosol icing with star tip attached to pipe a border around the rim of the cupcake and a pom pom for the top of the hat.

Easy zigzag Christmas tree

Here are some super-easy Christmas tree cupcakes with no decorating bag or tips required! Just buy green icing in a tube!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green gel or writing icing in tube; Christmas sprinkles; large yellow star sprinkle (this one is from Wilton.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use green writing icing to draw zigzag pattern shaped like a tree (skinny on top, wide on the bottom.) You can add a trunk or leave it abstract. Place star confetti on top and sprinkle with sprinkles.

Gingerbread boy cupcake

Run, run as fast and you can … and make cupcakes that look like a gingerbread man. Cute for Christmas!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 2 white Smarties candies; 1/2 pink mini marshmallow; red gel writing icing. Of course you can switch out the candies for whatever you have on hand.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add candies as shown for eyes and nose. Use gel to draw mouth, allowing extra gel to pool at either end to look like rosy cheeks.

Christmas elf cupcake

Make holiday guests happy with these happy elf cupcakes. Experiment with different colors and designs and let your creativity shine in your workshop-kitchen!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green sugar crystals; 2 green gumdrops; red candy for nose (we used Runts); mini marshmallows; red gel writing icing in tube.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle green sugar near top of cupcake for hat (It doesn’t have to be perfect, because the brim will be covered up with marshmallows). Add row of marshmallows to brim and near edge of cupcake for pompom. Add gumdrop eyes and candy nose. Use gel to draw red mouth, letting it “blob” up a bit on either end for cheeky appearance.