Easy Cupcakes

No piping or fancy stuff is needed for this hoppin’ good frog cupcakes!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green icing; red string licorice; 2 green sugar-coated fruit gels 2 red M&Ms (mini or regular).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add green fruit gels near top of cupcake. Use dabs of icing to stick M&Ms to fruit gels. Add bit of licorice in smile shape.

Cupcakes that look like apples would be a nice treat for the last day of school, or for a favorite teacher (for non-favorite teachers, add a gummy worm).

What You Need: 1 cupcake; icing tinted red; red sugar or sprinkles; candy spearmint leaf; scissors.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with red sugar. The spearmint leaf is probably quite thick; use scissors to cut it in half or in thirds (you can use one of the other pieces on a second cupcake.) That’s it!

You may have seen baseball cupcakes with the stitches piped in red icing or gel. Those are fun, but what if you don’t want to haul out the pastry bag and tips, or your hand is a little unsteady? Licorice can even the score.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white frosting; red string licorice (such as Twizzlers Pull-N-Peel); scissors.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Cut strand of licorice long enough to curve in a U shape on top of the cupcake. Cut about 9 smaller bits of licorice in equal lengths. Arrange long strand in curve and press slightly into frosting. Arrange smaller pieces on top for stitching. (They should stick to the larger strand.)

My friend’s sweet little girl is having a puppy-themed birthday party and I suggested these easy puppy dog cupcakes. The ears and tongue are made from cutup fruit rolls!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; red fruit roll; Junior Mint, malt ball or other round brown candy; 2 blue mini M&Ms; scissors.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Cut fruit roll into ear and tongue shapes (you can do this freehand with kid-safe scissors or–adults only–a knife, and you can make a template from paper or cardstock first if you need to.) Bend short ends of ears slightly and insert each near top of cupcake. Add tongue to bottom. Place chocolate in center and add eyes. There are lots of variations you could make. Use white frosting and black gel icing for Dalmatian cupcakes and so on.

It’s supposed to more than 100 degrees in my town this week, so I figured it was a good time to post this sunshine cupcake. All you need are fruit gels, M&Ms and licorice (no piping, but you’ll need to get your scissors sticky!)

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting (I used “Spring” frosting in a can); assorted sugar-coated fruit gels or gems; 2 black M&Ms; 2 small sections of black string licorice; scissors.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Cut fruit gels in quarters using scissors. Arrange gels, pointy side out, slightly overlapping the edge of the cupcake (eat the extras wedges!). Place 2 black M&Ms upside down for sunglasses and add black licorice to each side for frames.

You can make dozens of graduation party cupcakes quickly with just chocolate-covered graham crackers (mortarboard), licorice ropes (tassel) and M&M!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white frosting; 1 chocolate-covered graham cracker; red licorice ropes (such as Twizzlers Pull-N-Peel); 1 red M&M.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use dab of frosting to attach M&M to center of cap. Cut three lengths of licorice and use tiny dabs of licorice to attach to cap, from centered M&M outward.

Magical for a little girl’s birthday party or any fantasy-themed event, these easy unicorn cupcakes feature a horn made from a Bugle snack!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white frosting; marshmallow; 2 blue mini M&Ms, 1 Bugle snack; 2 white jelly beans; black food-safe pen. (Ateco, Wilton and other companies sell food-safe writing tubes and food-safe markers with edible ink.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Cut marshmallow in half width-wise and use food-safe pen to make two nostrils on the side that’s not cut. Place marshmallow in center of cupcake. Add M&M eyes. Place Bugle horn at top of cupcake and then place white jellybeans on each side.