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.

Purple, green, and gold are the traditional colors for a Mardi Gras party, and these cupcakes will have you celebrating New Orleans style. Add a plastic coin (I got a bunch at the Dollar Tree) or other Mardi Gras item for extra “bling.”

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; sugar or sprinkles in purple, green and yellow; colored coin, mask, or other Mardi Gras decoration.

How to Make It: Use 1M metal tip to make swirl, or just use a plastic sandwich bag with a corner snipped off. Sprinkle colors in this order: purple, green, gold. Top with coin.

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 just can’t stop making reindeer cupcakes! I’m out of control! This version of Rudolph, great for Christmas parties, uses chocolate covered pretzels for the antlers. If you have trouble with your antlers flopping over (poor reindeer!), you can stabilize them with toothpicks, but take them out before giving to children.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; milk chocolate frosting; chocolate-covered pretzels such as Flipz; 2 black or dark brown M&Ms; cherry sour ball.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Stick pretzels into cupcake (you may want to cut little slits for them). Add eyes and nose.

This Christmas reindeer gets his antlers from Barnum’s animal crackers! I think I used seals — poor creatures. Make a whole team for reindeer for your next holiday event.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; red hot or M&M candy; 2 candy eyes or white candies; 2 animal crackers.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add eyes and nose. Stick animal crackers into cupcake upside down for antlers.

I’d signed up to bring cupcakes to a pre-Thanksgiving “harvest” event at my kid’s school, and I realized I wasn’t going to have to time for elaborate decorations. Thankfully, premade sugar toppers in pumpkin and owl shapes (I’m pretty sure these are by CakeMate) and leaf-shaped sprinkles came to the rescue. Also, the simple 1M swirl technique adds class to any cupcake.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 1M metal tip and pastry bag; premade pumpkin topper; leaf sprinkles.

How to Make It: Fit 1M tip into pastry bag. Working from the outside of the cupcake inward, squeeze steadily to create a swirly top. Sprinkle with leave sprinkles. Add pumpkin to top. That’s it!

All you need is a gummy shark and a knife (poor sharky!) to make this simple shark cupcake for an ocean-themed party, aquarium visit, or other event.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white, off-white, or light blue frosting; 1 gummy shark; knife or kitchen shears.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Carefully cut the shark slightly above its tail fin. Place the tail and the rest of the shark’s body a short ways apart on the cupcake, so it looks like his midsection is underwater.