Easy Cupcakes

Simply place a few red hot candies on this star wreath and you have easy Christmas cupcakes!

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting; green frosting; pastry bag and metal star tip or prepared tube and plastic tip; red hot (cinnamon imperial) candies.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Tint some icing green using liquid or paste food coloring and fill pasty bag half-full and assemble coupler and #16 or #21 star tip. (You could instead buy green frosting in a tube; and the star tip is usually one in a set of four that screw right on to the tube.) Make a circle of stars, being careful to stop squeezing before you pull away or your stars will have points on their tops. Add red hot candies for berries.

You can use a Rolo, peanut butter cup or similar candy to complete this Christmas cupcake, and then have fun decorating the rest of it any way you’d like.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); chocolate frosting; Rolo or mini peanut butter cup; curved section of pretzel; writing icing; sprinkles.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Use something pointy to “drill” hole in top of candy wide enough to stick in pretzel without it breaking. Place near edge of cupcake top. Finish creatively with writing icing (or bag and tips), sprinkles and so on. You can make a whole batch of designs!

Super-quick to make, these snowman face cupcakes are great for Christmas or any winter event. All you need to decorate them is mini M&Ms and a bit of orange fruit roll.

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting; brown mini M&Ms; bit of orange fruit roll.
How To Make It: Frost cupcake white. Arrange M&Ms into eyes and a smile (or frown, or laugh, or however your snowman is feeling). Cut bit of fruit roll into triangle shape for nose.

These Christmas cupcakes are understated enough for a classy holiday event, yet fun for a more-casual party. Eat them the day you make them, or the red from the cinnamon imperials might “run.”

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting; cinnamon imperials (“red hots”); green leaf-shaped sprinkles (they don’t have to be ivy; we used maple leaf shapes).
Make That Cupcake!: Frost cupcake white. You can go for a flat or a fluffy appearance. Randomly place red hots on cupcakes. Add one or two green leaves at edges of red hots.

These cute Santa cupcakes are quick to make and would make a great kids’ activity for the holidays. Just set up a “cupcake station” with marshmallows, M&Ms, red hots and coconut and let them have at it!

What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); white or off-white frosting; red food coloring; coconut flakes; brown M&Ms; cinnamon imperials (red hots); miniature marshmallows.
Make That Cupcake!: Be sure to reserve some frosting to tint red using paste or liquid food coloring. Frost lower 2/3 of cupcake top white and top 1/3 red. Add a row of marshmallows where the two colors meet to make the brim of his Santa cap. Stick one marshmallow near the back for the tip of his cap. Sprinkle on coconut beard. Add brown M&M eyes and red hot nose. Ho, ho–you’re done!