Easy Cupcakes

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.

Chocolate sprinkles add texture to this reindeer cupcake.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; chocolate sprinkles; 2 stick pretzels; red-and-white candy-covered gumdrop (or red gumdrop, or cherry sour ball); red hot for tongue (some brands are a little heart-shaped, which is cute); candy eyes or mini M&Ms.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add chocolate sprinkles. Place eyes, nose and mouth as shown. Stick pretzels near top for antlers.

You’ll need to bring out the pastry bag and metal tip for this reindeer cupcake, but the results are worth the effort. I’ve seen variations on this idea in several places, and this is my take on the design.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 2 mini pretzel twists; 1 red M&M; 2 candy eyes (or use mini M&Ms); pastry bag; coupler; metal tip #5.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Load chocolate frosting into pastry bag with tip attached. Starting about one-third of the way down from the top edge of the cupcake, pipe a “blob” of frosting for the reindeer’s head. (Don’t move the pastry bag or tip much; just squeeze steadily in one spot and then stop squeezing before pulling away.) Then, below that, pipe a second, smaller blob for the muzzle. Prop a pretzel on either side, add M&M nose and candy eyes and you’re done!

Time for Christmas cupcakes already? Yep! These easy reindeer are based on an example in a 1980s cookbook, but they’re just as cute and tasty today as they were back then. It’s the chocolate sprinkles that add the texture.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 2 stick pretzels; 1 red sourball; 1 blue mini M&Ms; chocolate sprinkles.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. sprinkle with chocolate jimmies. Add red sourball nose and blue M&M eyes. Stick in pretzels for antlers.

This clever reindeer cupcake is adapted from an idea from Kraft foods that uses a chocolate sandwich cookie for the reindeer head.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); chocolate frosting; cookie such as Oreo (we used Trader Joe’s Candy Cane JoJo’s); cinnamon imperial (“red hot”); 2 mini pretzels; candy eyes or white and black writing icing.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake with chocolate icing. Cut cookie carefully into wedge shape as shown and place on top of cupcake. Position pretzels behind cookie for antlers. Use dab of icing to stick on red hot Rudolph nose and do the same with candy eyes (or use white and black writing icing).

This Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer gets his shiny nose from a gumdrop and his antlers from mini pretzels.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); chocolate frosting; 2 blue mini M&Ms; red gumdrop; 2 mini pretzels.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add gumdrop nose and M&M eyes. Break mini pretzels to look like antlers and poke into cupcake. That’s it!