Easy Cupcakes

Just as every snowflake in nature is unique, so it can be for your next batch of cupcakes. Have fun experimenting with different designs and colors. Maybe even add some sprinkles, or Wilton Cake Sparkles.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); icing tinted light blue; white frosting in decorating bag and round tip 1, 2 or 3 (or just use a commercially made tube of writing icing).
How to Make It: Frost cupcake blue. Using fluid motions and even pressure, pipe snowflake shapes onto cupcake. It’s easiest if, for each “line” in your design, you lightly touch the tip to the surface of the cupcake, pull away as you gently squeeze the length of the line, and touch the tip down again to reattach. Be sure to stop squeezing before you pull away.

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).

Half the fun of these Christmas tree cupcakes is “trimming” your tree with sprinkles, icing and more.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); icing tinted light green and green; white writing icing (or pastry bag and round tip); star tip #16 or purchased tube with decorating tip attachment; round and star confetti.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake light green. Using pastry bag or tube with star tip, pipe stars in a tree shape. Remember to stop squeezing before you pull the tip away for the best stars! Use white writing icing and various sprinkles to decorate your tree.

Buy a plastic deer from a cake decorating shop or just score one from the toy store’s plastic animal aisle.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white icing; marshmallow tree; plastic deer.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. You can use a decorating bag and tip or a plain old knife to make snowdrifts. Place marshmallow tree and plastic deer and you’re done!

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!

Simply place a few red hot candies on this star wreath and you have easy Christmas cupcakes!

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting; green frosting; pastry bag and metal star tip or prepared tube and plastic tip; red hot (cinnamon imperial) candies.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Tint some icing green using liquid or paste food coloring and fill pasty bag half-full and assemble coupler and #16 or #21 star tip. (You could instead buy green frosting in a tube; and the star tip is usually one in a set of four that screw right on to the tube.) Make a circle of stars, being careful to stop squeezing before you pull away or your stars will have points on their tops. Add red hot candies for berries.

You can use a Rolo, peanut butter cup or similar candy to complete this Christmas cupcake, and then have fun decorating the rest of it any way you’d like.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); chocolate frosting; Rolo or mini peanut butter cup; curved section of pretzel; writing icing; sprinkles.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use something pointy to “drill” hole in top of candy wide enough to stick in pretzel without it breaking. Place near edge of cupcake top. Finish creatively with writing icing (or bag and tips), sprinkles and so on. You can make a whole batch of designs!