Easy Cupcakes

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.

Blue-eyed Turkey

Candy corn is again the “crowning glory” of this turkey, but you can use ready-to-use decorating icing tubes to pipe on a beak and feet. It’s a nice touch for your Thanksgiving festivities, and easy!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 6 candy corns; 2 mini blue M&Ms; yellow writing icing in tube. (Or you can use decorating bags and a #2 metal tip.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add candy corn to edge of cupcake in fan shape. Pipe a V for the beak and an upsidedown V with a line on top for the feet. Add M&M eyes.

Betty Crocker turkey

This is my interpretation of Betty Crocker’s version of a turkey cupcake. These gobblers would be a great addition to the Thanksgiving table.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; candy corn; chocolate sprinkles; candy eyes (or just use mini M&Ms or other small candy); decorating bag, couplers and #12 Metal tip.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Assemble piping bag. Squeeze medium-sized blob onto center of cupcake, holding tip in one position so the frosting “pools” rather than building up very high. Then make a separate flattish blob on top of that one. Stick candy corn toward back of cupcake and on top blob for nose. Add eyes. Spinkle near tail and top of head.

Fish bowl cupcake

It’s the first ever “guest cupcakes” post on EasyCupcakes.com! Emily K. and her kids had a blast making and decorating these fishbowl-themed cupcakes. Thanks for sharing them, Emily!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; frosting tinted blue; gummi fish (Swedish fish); Nerds candies; green fruit rolls; scissors or butter knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake with a thin layer of white icing. Let dry for a bit. Frost all but about a half-inch area at the top of the cupcake with blue icing so it looks like water in a bowl. Put a bunch of colorful Nerds candies near the bottom of the “bowl” for gravel. Cut fruit roll into long pieces like aquarium plants, folding some over at the top. Add your fish!

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.

Patriotic flower cupcake

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.