Easy Cupcakes

These are super-easy St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes. Just assemble the toppers and kids can help make a batch quickly (for school parties) by adding Lucky Charms cereal.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; Lucky Charms cereal; cupcake topper; large circle punch; printable cupcake toppers (I used Lucky You cupcake toppers from Chickabug, offered free via HowDoesShe.com); glue; toothpick.

How to Make It: Download, print, punch, and assemble cupcake toppers (glue two facing toppers onto a toothpick). Stick into top of cupcake. Surround with Lucky Charms.

Here’s my take on the rainbow and pot of gold cupcakes that have been circulating around Pinterest St. Patrick’s Day boards. The key is getting your hands on those sour belt candies — I’ve seen them at drugstores such as CVS, but I was able to buy them singly at a candy shop. Yum! My belts were on the soft side; I had to prop up the middle with a toothpick. If you use this, make sure you take them out before serving to little kids.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting (I used canned Christmas frosting already tinted); rainbow-colored sour belt; mini marshmallows; Rolo candy (if you don’t buy the bag of individual wrapped ones, you can fashion a pot of gold out of a Rolo and the long, gold wrapper the regular rolls are wrapped in.)

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Arch rainbow and secure at one end by sticking a Rolo to it with frosting “glue.” Surround each end with mini marshmallow clouds.

There’s gold at the end of this lucky rainbow cupcake for St. Patrick’s Day. You can use huge coins like I did, or smaller ones, or no coins at all. The rainbow is an Airheads Extreme sour candy “belt.”

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green sugar sprinkles (or use green frosting); metal star tip and pastry bag (or snip end of plastic sandwich bag); Airheads Extreme sour belt; chocolate or plastic coins.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Sprinkle with green sugar. Use star tip to make two clouds on either side of the cupcake. Arrange rainbow candy to arch between the two clouds. Add coins to one end.

You can easily draw a shamrock to make a St. Patrick’s Day cupcake, thanks to gel icing in a tube!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; green gel writing icing.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake green. Use tube to “draw” clover shape. First, draw the outline and then fill in with gel.

All you need is some green icing to draw some hearts and create a clover shape. Don’t worry if you don’t have a pastry bag and metal tip. You can do the same thing with icing in a tube (“writing icing”) or even frosting in a plastic baggie with the tip snipped off.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white or off-white frosting; green frosting; pastry bag and metal tip #2 or one of the alternatives explained above.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake with white icing. Using the materials described above, pipe or “draw” three hearts arranged in a clover shape. Then add a stem.

For St. Patrick’s Day or anytime you need a bit of good luck, make these easy cupcakes with Lucky Charms cereal on top. They’re magically delicious!

What You Need: 1 cupcake; green frosting; marshmallow shapes from Lucky Charms cereal.

How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Add Lucky Charms cereal. that’s it!

Planning a party for St. Paddy’s Day? Or just taking cupcakes to your kid’s school? Personalize them by writing guests’ or students’ names on each one.

What You Need: 1 cupcake; white frosting; green frosting; pastry bag with couplers and metal tips #5 and #2 or #3. (You could get by with just #3, or icing premade in a tube).

How to Make It: Frost cupcake white. Using pastry bag and #5 metal tip, make three circles to form shamrock in upper left area of cupcake. Switch to #3 or #2 tip and pipe shamrock stem and name.