Easy Cupcakes

Gingerbread boy and tree cupcake

It’s not cheating to use those little candy shapes you can buy on a card at the grocery store. They’re fun! But you can jazz them up a bit by creating a little scene on your cupcake.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green frosting (I used Pillsbury’s holiday icing in a can); coconut; pastry bag and 1M metal tip or large star tip; Christmas sprinkles; large star sprinkle, premade gingerbread boy.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake while and sprinkle with coconut for snow. Assemble tip and bag with green frosting and make medium green swirl for tree. Add sprinkles and star for decorations. Stick gingerbread man next to tree.

3D reindeer cupcake

You’ll need to bring out the pastry bag and metal tip for this reindeer cupcake, but the results are worth the effort. I’ve seen variations on this idea in several places, and this is my take on the design.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 2 mini pretzel twists; 1 red M&M; 2 candy eyes (or use mini M&Ms); pastry bag; coupler; metal tip #5.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Load chocolate frosting into pastry bag with tip attached. Starting about one-third of the way down from the top edge of the cupcake, pipe a “blob” of frosting for the reindeer’s head. (Don’t move the pastry bag or tip much; just squeeze steadily in one spot and then stop squeezing before pulling away.) Then, below that, pipe a second, smaller blob for the muzzle. Prop a pretzel on either side, add M&M nose and candy eyes and you’re done!

Santa beard cupcakes

If you like frosting, you’ll like this Santa cupcake in which Mr. Claus sports a generous beard.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; red sugar or sprinkles; 2 black or brown M&Ms; 1 red hot candy (cinnamon imperial); pastry bag and star tip, or tube icing with star tip, or aerosol can icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Spinkle some red sugar near top of cupcake for hat. With star tip, add hat brim and pom pom. Then, add beard. Add M&M eyes and red hot nose.

Holly Berry cupcake

Don’t be intimidated by the leaf! It’s not hard use a metal decorating tip and pastry bag, but you can also just premade icing in a tube with screw-on leaf tip.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; icing tinted green (I used Pillsbury holiday frosting in a can, already green) 3 sour cherry balls; pastry bag with leaf tip #67 or similar.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Add 3 cherry balls for berries. Load green icing into pastry bag and add coupler and tip (or use tube). Gently and steadily squeeze to make two leaves. Stop squeezing before you pull away. If the tips of your leaves are separated, push them together with a toothpick or small paintbrush.

Earmuff Snowman cupcake

This snowman is chilly, but thankfully he brought his earmuffs (in the form of cherry LifeSavers.) These cupcakes are easy to make, especially for kids, because all you do is place the candy on the cupcake!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; 2 black or brown M&Ms; 2 red LifeSavers candies; strand of red licorice; 1 orange candy (I used something called a Cry Baby, but you could also try candy corn or part of an orange candy slice.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add M&M eyes and candy nose. Place LifeSavers at sides of face for earmuffs and connect with strand of red licorice. You can add a mouth if you’d like, but I thought my Frosty looked cute without.

Christmas candy corn

If you’re pressed for time this holiday season but want cute, colorful cupcakes, candy corn and red hots may the be answer. Arranged just so, they look like flowers!

What You Need: white frosting; 6 Christmas candy corns; 1 red hot (cinnamon imperial).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Place red hot in center of cupcake. Surround with candy corn.

Santa hat cupcake

There’s a huge amount of frosting on this cupcake, so prepare for a Santa-themed sugar shock. There are several ways you could approach a Santa hat design, but I didn’t feel like getting out the pastry bag and 1M swirl tip, so I just piled on the red frosting and whipped out my can of Betty Crocker Decorating Cupcake Icing.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; frosting tinted red (use no-taste red in paste form for best results); white aerosol icing.

How to Make It: Pile on a nice, tall mound of red icing. Use aerosol icing with star tip attached to pipe a border around the rim of the cupcake and a pom pom for the top of the hat.