Easy Cupcakes

I first saw this idea, using a circus peanut candy as a carrot, in Parents magazine. It’s so easy! If you don’t have stand-style licorice or fruit candy in green, just cut strips of a fruit roll.

What You Need: cupcake; white frosting; orange circus peanut; green fruit candy strips; something to poke a hole with (bamboo skewer, toothpick, etc.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Poke hole in end of circus peanut. Insert several strips of fruit roll.

There’s gold at the end of this lucky rainbow cupcake for St. Patrick’s Day. You can use huge coins like I did, or smaller ones, or no coins at all. The rainbow is an Airheads Extreme sour candy “belt.”

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green sugar sprinkles (or use green frosting); metal star tip and pastry bag (or snip end of plastic sandwich bag); Airheads Extreme sour belt; chocolate or plastic coins.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with green sugar. Use star tip to make two clouds on either side of the cupcake. Arrange rainbow candy to arch between the two clouds. Add coins to one end.

Fruit leather can be cute into cute shapes, as evidenced with these fun tulip cupcakes. They can double as a pretty flower centerpiece at spring parties.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; Stackers fruit snacks (by Betty Crocker, or cut with cookie cutters and/or scissors); scissors or knife; 2 green leaf gels; 3 toothpicks.

How to Make It: Using knife or scissors (supervise children), cut leaves in half and cute two notches on each fruit roll circle to form tulip shapes. Stick toothpick into or behind tulip. (You could also “sandwich” the toothpick between two pieces of fruit roll. Stick toothpicks into frosted cupcake. Add half a leaf to either side of two flowers.

I just can’t stop making reindeer cupcakes! I’m out of control! This version of Rudolph, great for Christmas parties, uses chocolate covered pretzels for the antlers. If you have trouble with your antlers flopping over (poor reindeer!), you can stabilize them with toothpicks, but take them out before giving to children.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; milk chocolate frosting; chocolate-covered pretzels such as Flipz; 2 black or dark brown M&Ms; cherry sour ball.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Stick pretzels into cupcake (you may want to cut little slits for them). Add eyes and nose.

I’d signed up to bring cupcakes to a pre-Thanksgiving “harvest” event at my kid’s school, and I realized I wasn’t going to have to time for elaborate decorations. Thankfully, premade sugar toppers in pumpkin and owl shapes (I’m pretty sure these are by CakeMate) and leaf-shaped sprinkles came to the rescue. Also, the simple 1M swirl technique adds class to any cupcake.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 1M metal tip and pastry bag; premade pumpkin topper; leaf sprinkles.

How to Make It: Fit 1M tip into pastry bag. Working from the outside of the cupcake inward, squeeze steadily to create a swirly top. Sprinkle with leave sprinkles. Add pumpkin to top. That’s it!

Long strands of stiff licorice give this Halloween spider a spooky reach. Use chocolate frosting, sprinkles and M&M eyes to make him even tastier.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; chocolate sprinkles; black (or dark brown) M&Ms; black licorice (strand style); knife or kitchen shears.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with chocolate jimmies. Place two black M&Ms, letter side down, for eyes. Cut licorice into eight equal strands and insert into cupcake for legs.

This quick and easy spiderweb cupcake is a great Halloween project for kids — if you can keep them from biting the tips off the Hershey’s Kisses. (OK, I was tempted, too.)

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; orange frosting; Hershey’s Kiss; black string licorice; toothpick; scissors; pastry bag and round tip or just use a plastic bag with a corner cut off.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake with chocolate frosting. “Pipe” three concentric circles of orange frosting as shown. Drag toothpick from middle to edge of cupcake, forming a web shape. Do this all the way around the cupcake, 7 or 8 times, but wipe toothpick clean in between each motion. Place Hershey’s Kiss upside down on cupcake (you might want to cut off the end so it will lie flatter). Use scissors or knife to carefully cut off spider “legs” about 1/2 inch long and place four on each side of Hershey’s Kiss.