Shamrock party cupcake
What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green frosting; pastry bag with couplers and metal tips #5 and #2 or #3. (You could get by with just #3, or icing premade in a tube).
How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Using pastry bag and #5 metal tip, make three circles to form shamrock in upper left area of cupcake. Switch to #3 or #2 tip and pipe shamrock stem and name.
Shamrock cupcake
What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; shredded coconut; green food coloring (liquid dye or paste); pastry bag with coupler and #5 metal tip.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake green. Tint shredded coconut green and sprinkle on top of cupcake. Use pastry bag and metal tip to pipe 3 (or 4) flat circles, plus a stem, to make a clover.
St. Patrick's Day bear cupcake
What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; chocolate frosting; 1 red hot candy (round); 2 red hot candies (heart shaped); 6 green mini M&Ms; 2 candy eyes or small white candies; pastry bag with coupler and #5 and #2 metal tips.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake green. Use chocolate icing and pastry bag with round #5 tip to pipe a bear face, muzzle and two ears. Add eyes and red nose. Place 2 heart-shaped red hots with points facing to form bow tie. Arrange 3 green mini M&Ms in two areas to form shamrocks. Use #2 metal tip to add chocolate stem.
Green jelly bean cupcake
What You Need: 1 cupcake; green icing (I used Pillsbury’s holiday frosting); green sugar or sprinkles; green jellybeans (or go smaller with Jelly Bellys).
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with or dip in green sugar. Add jelly beans.
You can make great St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes without any fancy fondant or funky tools other than a small, heart-shaped cutter. The secret is gumdrops. (However, we do have easy tips on fondant clover cupcakes, too.)
What You Need: 1 cupcake; white icing; a few large green gumdrops or spice drops; rolling pin or glass; small, heart-shaped cookie cutter; scissors or kitchen shears; a bit of flour or powdered (confectioner’s) sugar.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Flatten gumdrop to about one-quarter inch in height by rolling them with a rolling pin or the edge of a glass. Put a little flour or powdered sugar on the surface and roller if the gumdrops stick too much. Dip heart cutter in flour or powdered sugar to keep it from sticking and cut out 3 heart shapes. Use scissors, knife or spatula to cut small stem for clover. Arrange parts on cupcake.
These easy St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes don’t require any special decorating tips or techniques, just mini M&Ms and some foil-wrapped chocolate coins.
What You Need: 1 cupcake; white, green or blue icing; mini M&Ms in various rainbow colors; chocolate coins.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Leaving a little space at the right edge for coins, arrange mini M&Ms in an arched rainbow. Add chocolate coins.
These clover-shaped cupcakes will be the hit of the St. Patrick’s Day party, as everyone asks, “How’d you do that?” Well, it’s easy.
What You Need: Cupcake batter; paper liners (with shamrocks if you’d like!); marbles or balled-up aluminum foil; green icing; toothpick.
How to Make It: Fill muffin tin with paper liners. Fill each liner about half-full with batter. If you fill them too full, the batter will spill over and your cupcakes won’t look like shamrocks. (You may have to experiment a bit.) Now, slip 3 marbles, equally spaced, between the paper liner and the inside bottom of the muffin tin. Bake as usual, but check frequently. Also, don’t burn yourself, as the marbles get pretty hot! Once the cupcakes cool, frost them with green icing and use a toothpick to draw leaf “veins.” Or, use green writing icing. Add a green candy stem (we used Sour Punch green apple straws).
