Easy Cupcakes

Easy zigzag Christmas tree

Here are some super-easy Christmas tree cupcakes with no decorating bag or tips required! Just buy green icing in a tube!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green gel or writing icing in tube; Christmas sprinkles; large yellow star sprinkle (this one is from Wilton.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use green writing icing to draw zigzag pattern shaped like a tree (skinny on top, wide on the bottom.) You can add a trunk or leave it abstract. Place star confetti on top and sprinkle with sprinkles.

Gingerbread boy cupcake

Run, run as fast and you can … and make cupcakes that look like a gingerbread man. Cute for Christmas!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 2 white Smarties candies; 1/2 pink mini marshmallow; red gel writing icing. Of course you can switch out the candies for whatever you have on hand.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add candies as shown for eyes and nose. Use gel to draw mouth, allowing extra gel to pool at either end to look like rosy cheeks.

Christmas elf cupcake

Make holiday guests happy with these happy elf cupcakes. Experiment with different colors and designs and let your creativity shine in your workshop-kitchen!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green sugar crystals; 2 green gumdrops; red candy for nose (we used Runts); mini marshmallows; red gel writing icing in tube.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle green sugar near top of cupcake for hat (It doesn’t have to be perfect, because the brim will be covered up with marshmallows). Add row of marshmallows to brim and near edge of cupcake for pompom. Add gumdrop eyes and candy nose. Use gel to draw red mouth, letting it “blob” up a bit on either end for cheeky appearance.

Christmas reindeer cupcake

Time for Christmas cupcakes already? Yep! These easy reindeer are based on an example in a 1980s cookbook, but they’re just as cute and tasty today as they were back then. It’s the chocolate sprinkles that add the texture.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; chocolate frosting; 2 stick pretzels; 1 red sourball; 1 blue mini M&Ms; chocolate sprinkles.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. sprinkle with chocolate jimmies. Add red sourball nose and blue M&M eyes. Stick in pretzels for antlers.

There are as many ways to make a snowman cupcake as there are to make a “real” snowman! This version comes to life someday thanks to two piped icing blobs, mini M&M eyes and red licorice arms.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white icing tinted light blue; white icing; pastry bag and #5 tip (or just use packaged tube of icing or a plastic bag with a hole cut in it); 2 brown mini M&Ms; red licorice strings.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake blue. Fill pastry bag or plastic sandwich bag partway with white frosting. (If you’re using a plastic bag, cut a small hole from which to squeeze the icing. If you’re using a pastry bag, use metal tip #5 or similar.) Squeeze icing into one spot until you have a quarter-sized blob. Stop squeezing before you pull away so the blog stays flat (You can flatten it yourself if you need to, but do it before the icing hardens,) Pipe a similar but smaller blob above the first. Place 2 mini M&Ms, upside down, on the top circle for eyes. Cut strands of red licorice for arms. You could also add buttons, a fruit leather nose or whatever you’d like!

These Christmas tree cupcakes are basically a triangle of icing stars with sprinkled decorations and a simple M&M trunk.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting; frosting tinted green; red sprinkles; yellow star sprinkle; brown M&M.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. To make the stars, you can use a purchased tube of green icing with twist-on plastic tip, or use pastry bag with star tip. When you’re making stars, be sure to stop squeezing before you pull the tip away from the cupcake. Make triangle shape with green stars for tree. Decorate with red sprinkles and large star sprinkle, or whatever you’d like. Use brown M&M for trunk.

Here’s another take on reindeer cupcakes. Instead of using mini pretzels for antlers, make horns out of the thick style of pretzel.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); chocolate frosting; thick pretzel; red gumdrop; 2 Tic-Tac mints.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Break pretzel and stick into cupcake to make two horns. Add gumdrop nose and Tic-Tac eyes.