Easy Cupcakes

Thanksgiving guests will gobble up these turkey cupcakes, which are made with mint patties and sliced almonds.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting; 1 thin mint patty (such as by Necco); Junior Mint; about 15 almond slices; candy eyes (or just use mini M&Ms or white icing); red writing icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake yellow. Place larger mint at center of cupcake. Using dab of icing as “glue,” put Junior Mint on larger mint for head. Add eyes and squeeze small line of red icing for wattle. Arrange sliced almonds in rows behind larger mint for feathers.

Celebrate fall with these easy cupcakes that pair an edible rake with falling leaves. They’re great for harvest festivals and other autumn events.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting; stick pretzel; chocolate Twizzler; leaf-shaped sprinkles (such as by Wilton); scissors or kitchen shears.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Break about one-quarter of the pretzel stick off and discard (or eat). Cut about a 1-inch length of Twizzler. Insert scissors into Twizzler (it’s hollow) and make about six cuts around, about two-thirds up. Poke broken end of pretzel into intact end of Twizzler and fan out ends to look like a broom. Place on cupcake. Add leaves to “ground” and “air.”

This acorn cupcake idea was first seen in the hit book Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make. I made some for my kid’s autumn-themed bake sale and they were a big hit. They’d be great for Thanksgiving, a nut (or Nutella!) cupcake recipe or any fall festivity.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white frosting; chocolate frosting; 2 Hershey’s kisses; 2 mini Nilla Wafers; pastry bag and round tip (No. 2 or 3, or just use premade icing in a tube or bag).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Use bit of chocolate frosting to attach mini vanilla wafer cookie to base of unwrapped Hershey’s Kiss. Use pastry bag or tube to add chocolate “stem” to wafer.

What would a turkey be without a wattle? (Or waddle, as I always thought it was spelled.) Thanks to decorating gel in a tube, you can outfit your Thanksgiving turkey cupcakes with one.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 6 candy corns; 2 candy eyes (or just use small candies); yellow writing icing in premade tube or pastry bag; red gel writing icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Load chocolate frosting into a pastry bag fitted with a #12 metal tip and coupler. Pipe large blob for neck and smaller blob for head. Add eyes. Use yellow writing icing to draw beak. Use red gel for wattle. Stick 3 candy corn on each side of cupcake for feathers.

Candy corn is again the “crowning glory” of this turkey, but you can use ready-to-use decorating icing tubes to pipe on a beak and feet. It’s a nice touch for your Thanksgiving festivities, and easy!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 6 candy corns; 2 mini blue M&Ms; yellow writing icing in tube. (Or you can use decorating bags and a #2 metal tip.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add candy corn to edge of cupcake in fan shape. Pipe a V for the beak and an upsidedown V with a line on top for the feet. Add M&M eyes.

This is my interpretation of Betty Crocker’s version of a turkey cupcake. These gobblers would be a great addition to the Thanksgiving table.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; candy corn; chocolate sprinkles; candy eyes (or just use mini M&Ms or other small candy); decorating bag, couplers and #12 Metal tip.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Assemble piping bag. Squeeze medium-sized blob onto center of cupcake, holding tip in one position so the frosting “pools” rather than building up very high. Then make a separate flattish blob on top of that one. Stick candy corn toward back of cupcake and on top blob for nose. Add eyes. Spinkle near tail and top of head.

Use this turkey as inspiration for your own cupcake design. We used Fruit Roll-ups brand “Stackers” and craft sticks for the feathers; you could try fruit leather and toothpicks, or fondant and bamboo skewers, or whatever you have on hand.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); chocolate frosting; circus peanut; bit of red fruit roll (for wattle); candy eyes (or just use black writing icing); thin craft sticks or skewers; Fruit Roll-ups Stackers.
Make That Cupcake!: Frost cupcake with chocolate icing. Using dabs of icing, stick candy eyes to top of circus peanut. Using clean scissors or knife, cut fruit roll into shape of turkey wattle and stick to bottom end of circus peanut and place peanut on cupcake. Stack Stackers on top of each other with craft stick or skewer between them. When you have as many as you’d like, stick them into cupcake for feathers.