Long legged spider cupcake

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.

Hershey's Kiss spider web cupcake

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.

Jack-o-lantern cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; Halloween (or any) sprinkles; 1 orange Mentos candy from the Fruit roll; food-safe black pen; bit of green fruit roll or string.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use food-safe pen to draw face on Mentos for Jack-o-lantern. Attach bit of green fruit roll with dab of icing. Place on cupcake. Add sprinkles.

Pumpkin patch cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate or green-tinted frosting; 4 or 5 orange Mentos candies; green fruit leather or string; scissors or knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake with chocolate for “dirt” or green for “grass.” Cut 4 or 5 quarter-inch lengths of fruity string. Use tiny dabs of icing to adhere to tops of Mentos for pumpkin stalks. Arrange on top of cupcake. Fill in with curls of fruit string for vines.

Scarecrow cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting; chocolate (or black) Twizzler; shredded wheat (I used spoon-size); 2 black or brown M&Ms; orange chocolate covered sunflower seed (or substitute mini M&M turned sideways); black shoelace licorice; scissors or knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Break apart shredded wheat and sprinkle or place at top and bottom for straw. Cut Twizzler into one length almost as wide as the cupcake and another length slightly shorter. Assemble as shown for hat. Place candy eyes, nose and mouth.

Dracula cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted green; 2 red hots; red writing icing; black tubed icing and star tip; 2 Tic Tacs.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake green. Using black tubed icing, pipe pointy-topped stars (don’t stop squeezing as you pull away) with a row in the back, then three stars, then one, to form a widow’s peak. Add red hot eyes. Pipe red smile. Add Tic Tac teeth.

Vampire bite cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; toothpick; red gel writing icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use toothpicks to poke two holes about half the size of a pencil eraser, approximately 3/4″ apart. Squeeze some red gel icing into and oozing out of the holes for gory blood.

Little ghost cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; Halloween sprinkles; 2 brown mini M&Ms, white frosting; pastry bag; round metal tip (I used #5).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake green. Use pastry bag to pipe ghost in a swirly motion. Add M&M eyes. Add sprinkles.

Brain cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; white frosting; red gel writing icing; pastry bag and round metal tip (I used #5).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake with chocolate icing. Using pastry bag fitted with #5 tip, make two groups of circles (remember to stop squeezing the icing bag before you pull up or you’ll get little peaks). For each hemisphere of the brain, I made an inside row of four circles and an outside row of three. Then, drizzle red gel for oozing blood. Happy Halloween!

Frankenstein cupcake

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted green; 1 piece of candy corn; 1 mini marshmallow; 1 stick pretzel; purple writing icing; green food-safe marker; scissors or knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use purple writing icing to scribble hair at top of cupcake. Break pretzel in half and stick one end on each side of head for bolts. Cut marshmallow in half and use food-safe market to draw eyeball on each. Place eyes and candy corn nose on Frankenstein’s face.