Easy Cupcakes

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.

The white Mentos mint candies are just the right shape and size to make a nice, fat snowman. Get out your food-safe pens and decorate your snowman! (you could use a Sharpie, but you’d need to make sure no one actually eats the candies — and that’s kind of a bummer).

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 3 mint (white) Mentos candies; orange candy-covered sunflower seed (or other triangular candy); black food-safe pen; strip of fruit roll (I used Rainbow Airheads Extremes); white star, flower or snowflake sprinkles.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use food-safe pen to draw buttons, eyes, etc. on your snowman. Use dab of icing to attach orange sunflower seed nose. Cut or tear strip of fruit roll for scarf and wrap/place it between the first and second mint. Arrange snowman’s parts on your cupcake. Add “snow” sprinkles.

Stick a candy cane into a swirl-topped cupcake and sprinkle with chocolate and it looks a lot like the whipped cream on top of holiday hot chocolate!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white frosting; chocolate jimmies; mini candy cane; pastry bag and 1M swirl tip.

How to Make It: Make 1M swirl. Immediately sprinkle with chocolate jimmies. Add candy cane. That’s it!

All you need for these simple Christmas cupcakes is some mini M&Ms and a Starlight mint!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; red and green mini M&Ms; Starlight mint (the peppermint ones that taste like candy canes, or the green ones).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Unwrap mint and place in center of cupcake. Add M&Ms around the edge, upside down, alternating red and green.

A heart-shaped muffin cup or cupcake liner makes the perfect shape for Santa’s face!

What You Need: Aluminum (such as by Reynolds), silicon or other heart-shaped muffin tin or cupcake liner; white frosting; red sprinkles; 5 mini marshmallows; shaved coconut; 2 blue mini M&Ms; 1 black M&M; 1 round or tear-shaped red candy.

How to Make It: Turn heart shape upside down and frost curved part white for beard base. Sprinkle with coconut. Frost very top of heart point for hat. Sprinkle with red sugar or sprinkles. Add marshmallows to bottom of hat, plus one at the top. Add candy eyes, nose and mouth.

Counter a winter cold snap with a tasty, cute s’mores cupcake. These are especially delicious with chocolate cupcakes, or get really adventuresome and try a rocky road cupcake. Scouts would love them, too.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; snowflake-shaped sprinkles; 2 squares Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal; 1 mini marshmallow; 1 chocolate chip.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake and sprinkle with snowflakes. Carefully sandwich the chocolate chip and marshmallow between the 2 cereal squares and microwave, on a safe plate, for a very short time — maybe 5 seconds. Press top square down a bit so the chocolate melts more and the marshmallow oozes out a bit. Place on top of cupcake.

Kids will love making these easy mouse cupcakes for Christmas or anytime. All you need are red candies and mini Nilla Wafers.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; 2 mini Nilla Wafer cookies; red strand licorice (not the floppy kind); 2 red hots (cinnamon imperials); 1 red gumdrop; scissors.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Stick cookies into top of cupcake for ears. Add nose and eyes. Cut licorice strand into six equal pieces and insert for whiskers.