Easy Cupcakes

There’s a little trick with this treat: a fun spider web pattern that may look hard to make but is really quite simple.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled), white frosting, black writing icing or gel, plastic spider or toy spider ring, toothpick.

Make That Cupcake!: Frost cupcake white. Squeeze a small (about 1/2″) blob of black icing on the top of the cupcake (or off-center, depending on how you’d like your web to look). Use writing tip with icing or gel tube to draw two circles, one inside of the other, around the center blob. Place toothpick in center icing blob and draw toothpick in one smooth motion from the center to the edge of the cupcake. Wiping off toothpick in between, continue around the cupcake, nine or 10 times equally spaced until you have a nice web shape. Place spider in center of cupcake. Make sure no one eats the spider!

Take a break from scary Halloween cupcakes and mellow out with these pumpkin patch cupcakes featuring mellocreme pumpkins.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled), white, off-white or chocolate frosting, coconut flakes, green food coloring (liquid or paste), mellowcreme pumpkins.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Tint small amount of coconut flakes green and sprinkle on top of cupcake for “grass.” Add mellowcreme pumpkins. So easy it’s scary! Make up a whole batch and you’ll have pumpkin fields forever.

These cupcakes may not look appetizing, but trust us, they taste great while also being good for a laugh at a Halloween party.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting, red writing icing or gel, green or blue gumdrop, red hot imperial candy.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake using white icing. Using rolling pin, glass or just your hands, squish a gumdrop into a flat disk. Use a dab of frosting to stick red hot candy to gumdrop for pupil of eye. Stick the eye in the center of the frosted cupcake. Use red writing icing or gel to draw on veins to make the “eyes” look bloodshot. So creepy your eyes will get watery just making them!

Make a whole tray of these tombstone cupcakes to get the full graveyard impact. Any oval or rectangle cookie will work: Milanos, Nutter Butters, etc.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); Milano or other oval or rectangular cookie; white, off-white or chocolate icing; black writing icing or gel; coconut flakes; chocolate syrup (or brown food coloring to tint coconut); candy “rocks.”
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Tint coconut brown (it doesn’t have to be perfect; a “muddy” look is realistic). Write “RIP” or your guest’s name or whatever you’d like on cookie. Use a butter knife to make a slice in the cupcake to insert the cookie. Sprinkle tinted coconut on cupcake. Add “rocks.”

Fruit roll-ups are the edible wings on this creepy-yet-cute vampire bat. Make a whole colony of these cupcakes for your Halloween party!

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); frosting tinted purple (you can mix red and blue food coloring); 2 purple or black gumdrops; 2 red M&Ms; 2 white candies such as Good & Plenty or Tic Tacs; red fruit rolls.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake and before it gets too firm, stick about a 4-inch length of fruit roll (we used Fruit by the Foot) on left and right side for wings. You could cut it into a more-authentic wing shape if you’d like. Add gumdrops for ears, M&Ms for blood-red eyes and white candies for fangs and you’re ready to scare your guests!

Bone up for Halloween with these scary skull cupcakes. They’re quick, easy and you can use what you have on hand: Jellybeans, Tic Tacs or similar white candies would work for the “mouth.”

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white or off-white (such as buttercream) frosting, from a can or homemade; small amount black icing and bag/writing tip set or purchased writing icing or gel; two brown M&Ms, four white jellybeans.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake with white frosting. Add M&M eyes. “Draw” two thin lines for nostrils. Add four jellybeans to bottom edge. A whole bunch of these skull cupcakes makes for an eerie effect.

Here’s a quick and easy cupcake that will make for a deadly fun Halloween treat. It’s a black widow spider, complete with the telltale hourglass. That plump spider body is actually a Junior Mint and an M & M candy.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting (from a can or homemade); small amount black and red frostings plus piping bag and writing tip, or purchased writing icing or gel; Junior Mint; dark brown M&M.
How to Make It: Spread cupcake with white frosting. Place M & M directly above Junior Mint. Using writing tip to make eight black legs on spider. To make red hourglass, “draw” an X with icing, connect top and bottom and fill in. Super creepy!