Easy Cupcakes

Halloween owl

Cute yet slightly spooky, these brown owls are a “hoot” (sorry!) for Halloween parties. Just pop on a few candies and you’re done!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 2 yellowish LifeSavers (banana, lemon or butterrum work well); 2 red hot candies (aka cinnamon imperials); candy corn (with yellow or brown ends; regular size or wide candy corn).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Place 2 LifeSavers for eyes and use dab of icing to stick red hot in center of each. Add candy corn nose.

Let these penguin cupcakes coming marching onto your Christmas dessert table, or any time of year, perhaps at a Happy Feet or Surf’s Up party?

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); icing tinted light blue; 2 thin mint cookies (we used Necco); 2 Tic Tac mints; bit of orange fruit roll; white icing.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake blue. Using knife, cut 2 thin mints in half. (You’ll have an extra half, and we say just eat it. Or make more penguins.) Arrange one half horizontally for head and the other two, splayed out, for wings. Cut bit of fruit roll into triangle for beak. Add 2 Tic Tacs for feet. For eyes, you can use a decorating bag and tip 1, 2 or 3 to pipe eyes, or just wing it and dap them on with a knife.

Get those umbrellas out of drinks and onto cupcakes! You don’t have to use toucans; other animals would be just as cool.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white or off-white frosting; green paste or liquid icing; flower-shaped sprinkles; paper umbrella; mini toucan cookies (we found ours at Trader Joe’s.)
Make That Cupcake!: Tint icing green and frost cupcake. Add umbrella, toucan and flower sprinkles. That’s it!

These snowy owls would work just as well for a Halloween party as a Harry Potter party. They’re a real “hoot”–ugh, sorry!

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting; coconut flakes; two red Lifesavers candies; small green “dot” candies (the kind sold on a paper strip) or similar candy; Junior Mint candy.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake and immediately sprinkle with coconut. Using butter knife, make small slit a little below the center of cupcake and insert Junior Mint, sideways, for beak. Add two red Lifesavers for eyes and put small green candies in the center. (Tip: You might want to wait until just before serving to put the eyes on, as the red might “bleed” onto the white background.)