Easy Cupcakes

For this little lion, all you need are candies — no special tips or tubes required. If you don’t have these exact candies, just pick something you do have.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted a deep yellow; chocolate sprinkles (mane); 2 large Wilton sprinkles (cheeks); 2 small white candies (eyes); brown mini M&M (nose); pink gel icing (mouth); 2 candy corns (ears); black food-safe pen.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle chocolate sprinkles around the entire edge of the cupcake for mane. Use black food-safe pen to write pupil on white candy eyes. Add candies to make face as shown.

Inspired by a recent article in Family Fun magazine, these cute black-and-white cow cupcakes are a great addition to a barnyard or farm-themed birthday party, ho down, or any cupcake cattle call!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; 2 Junior Mints; 1 pick candy wafer; 2 mini brown M&Ms; 2 white jellybeans; black writing icing in tube.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use writing icing to make two dots on pink wafer for nostrils and place near center bottom of cupcake. Place Junior Mints, angled upward, near top of cupcake. Add jellybean horns and mini M&M eyes.

If you don’t worry about being perfectly accurate with your cupcake mammals, this pawprint cupcake could pass for a bear, dog, cat or other creature.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; 1 mint patty (such as Necco); 3 Junior Mints.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Arrange 3 Junior Mints above large mint.

These pink pig cupcakes get their sweet, textured ears from sugar wafer cookies with waffle pattern.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted pink; pink sugar wafer cookie; large pink candy-coated mint or similar pink candy; 2 blue mini M&Ms; white icing in tube or pastry bag; knife.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use knife to cut cookies into triangle shapes and place near top of pig’s head for ears. Pipe 2 white dots on pink candy for nose and place in center of face. Add M&M eyes.

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.

The standout feature of these cute lion cupcakes is in the mane. You’ll need a star tip (#22 is good), but making the mane is easy.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting (I used Pillsbury Spring frosting in a can); pastry bag and metal star tip, or use icing in a tube; 1 light pink and 2 dark pink jelly beans; chocolate sprinkles; 2 small green candies (these are by CakeMate, in the grocery store’s cake decorating section.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use star tip to pipe long stars around the edge of the cupcake, and then repeat farther inward on the cupcake. Don’t stop squeezing as you pull away, so the ends of the stars will have pointy tips. Place pink nose, green eyes and 4 chocolate sprinkles for face. Add 2 dark pink jelly beans for ears.

Grrreast for a jungle or zoo party, or any time you want to “stick your neck out” when making cupcakes, consider these fun giraffe cupcakes.

What You need: 1 cupcake; yellow frosting; 2 thin pretzel sticks, 2 puffy cereal pieces (such as Cocoa Puffs or Kix); 1 pink Necco wafer; thin black licorice or black writing icing; 2 mini chocolate M&Ms; food-safe pens. (Instead of pens, you can try writing icing.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use dab of icing to attach puffy cereal to tips of pretzels. (You may want to cut the pretzels to make them shorter.) Let dry for a bit. Use food-safe pen to draw nostrils and mouth on Necco wafer. Arrange 6 licorice strands (or draw 6 lines with writing icing) for stripes and place wafer on top of them. Add M&M eyes. Insert pretzel horns.