Easy Cupcakes

There’s gold at the end of this lucky rainbow cupcake for St. Patrick’s Day. You can use huge coins like I did, or smaller ones, or no coins at all. The rainbow is an Airheads Extreme sour candy “belt.”

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green sugar sprinkles (or use green frosting); metal star tip and pastry bag (or snip end of plastic sandwich bag); Airheads Extreme sour belt; chocolate or plastic coins.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with green sugar. Use star tip to make two clouds on either side of the cupcake. Arrange rainbow candy to arch between the two clouds. Add coins to one end.

Fruit leather can be cute into cute shapes, as evidenced with these fun tulip cupcakes. They can double as a pretty flower centerpiece at spring parties.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; Stackers fruit snacks (by Betty Crocker, or cut with cookie cutters and/or scissors); scissors or knife; 2 green leaf gels; 3 toothpicks.

How to Make It: Using knife or scissors (supervise children), cut leaves in half and cute two notches on each fruit roll circle to form tulip shapes. Stick toothpick into or behind tulip. (You could also “sandwich” the toothpick between two pieces of fruit roll. Stick toothpicks into frosted cupcake. Add half a leaf to either side of two flowers.

I first saw the lollipop flower concept in a magazine — I think Martha Stewart’s. I used Airheads candy to make the leaves, but you could use Starburst, spearmint gum or even spearmint leaves.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green sugar; 2 Dum Dums (or other round) lollipops; green Airheads or other moldable candy (or cut up green gum or gumdrops).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with green sugar for grass. Stick two unwrapped lollipops or suckers, staggered, in top of cupcake. With clean hands or gloves, mold Airheads into leaf shapes (pointy ovals) and place near bottom of flowers.

Three bluebirds await their mama bird in a nest on this cupcake, which features toasted coconut.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted green; toasted coconut; 3 pastel blue M&Ms; food-safe markers.

How to Make It: Toast coconut for 5-10 minutes in 350-degree oven. Let cool. Frost cupcake green. Sprinkle center with coconut for nest. Use food-safe markers to draw eyes and beak on each M&M. Arrange birds in nest.

Use candies of various shapes and sizes to make dragonfly, butterfly and bug cupcakes. Go with pastels or bright colors, but whatever you do, have fun!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; assorted candies such as jellybeans, Jordan almonds and candy-covered mints; food-safe pens.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Arrange candies on top. For dragonfly shown, make row of three pink jellybeans and position yellow Jordan almonds on each side for wings. Draw 2 black “eyes” on round candy and add for face.

With candy-coated chocolate eggs, or pastel M&Ms, you can make spring butterfly cupcakes in seconds.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted green; 4 pastel candy-coated chocolates; green (or black) writing icing or gel.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Arrange candies as wings. (You can also decorate the wings with sprinkles or icing if you’d like). Use gel or writing icing to draw body and antenna.

Use jellybeans and a round candy to arrange a spring flower and finish it off with piped leaves.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green frosting; 6 yellow (or any color) jellybeans; 1 orange (or any color) candy for center (I used a Runt); pastry bag and leaf tip, or tubed icing with leaf tip.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Arrange 6 jellybeans around center candy to form flower shape. Add green leaves.