Easy Cupcakes

Red velvet cupcakes are the height of decadence. But you can trim the calories and fat without hurting the taste, on Valentine’s Day or any day. Here’s a recipe adapted from Cooking Light. We dressed ours up with pink frosting and three cherry sour candies. (Or, use traditional cream cheese frosting.)
What You Need: 1 2/3 cups sugar; 5 Tbsp. vegetable shortening; 1 large egg white; 1 large egg; 3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa; 1 1-ounce bottle red food coloring (yes, the entire bottle); 2 1/4 cups flour; 1 tsp salt (optional); 1 cup reduced-fat buttermilk; 1 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract; 1 Tbsp. white vinegar; 1 tsp. baking soda.
How to Make It: Beat sugar and shortening with mixer for about 5 minutes. Add egg white and egg and beat in. Separately, stir together cocoa and food coloring and then add to mixture. Add some of the flour and then some of the buttermilk, alternating and ending with the rest of the flour until it’s all mixed in. Mix in vanilla. Separately, combine vinegar and baking soda and then add to mixture. Pour into lined muffin tins. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven until toothpick comes out clean, perhaps about 24 minutes (cooking time will vary).

Swirl heart cupcake

Red velvet cupcakes are all the rage, and for good reason: They’re tasty. If you’re nowhere near a cupcake shop on Valentine’s Day and don’t want to use the time and copious bottles of red dye to make red velvet cupcakes, fear not. Duncan Hines has stepped in with red velvet cake mix. It ain’t half bad, but it certainly ain’t the real thing either. When you decorate your red velvet cupcakes, consider using white liners so the red shows through, and leave a little cake showing at the edge when you frost.
What You Need: 1 red velvet cupcake (baked and cooled); white frosting; pastry bag; size 1M metal icing tip; red, white and pink sprinkles; red candy heart.
How to Make It: Fit 1M metal tip to disposable pastry bag (the 1M tip is larger than standard size; a disposable bag means you won’t have to cut so far into a cloth bag). Fill pastry bag halfway with white icing. While squeezing out icing, move arm in a circular motion and cover the top of the cupcake with a swirl of icing. Then, starting a little bit in from the edge this time, make a second swirl on top of the first one. Immediately add candy sprinkles and place heart candy strategically in the swirls.

These lovely, pink-tinged flowers are made from marshmallows. If you’d prefer a smaller flower, just use mini marshmallows. A more colorful flower: tinted marshmallows. You get the picture.
What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); frosting (we used pink); marshmallows; round red candy; pink sugar crystals; kitchen shears (or plain old scissors, but they’ll get sticky.)
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Cut three marshmallows in half as shown. Sprinkle with pink sugar crystals, which will stick to the sticky marshmallows. Arrange 5 marshmallow halves on top of cupcake and place red candy in center. (You will have an extra marshmallow petal left over. Eat it or make more cupcakes.)

Plant a kiss with these Valentine’s Day cupcakes featuring a pair of fat, red lips.
What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); frosting tinted pink; red writing icing or red icing in pastry bag with round metal tip.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake pink. Use red writing icing to pipe lip shape on top of cupcake. Be sure to stop squeezing before you pull away to avoid sloppy lines.

Candy corn makes a re-appearance come Valentine’s Day, but in shades of pink rather than Halloween orange. Use it to make easy cupcakes with a tasty topping.
What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); frosting tinted pink; Valentine’s candy corn; red candy heart.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake. Immediately place candy corn end to end around rim of cupcake. Add heart candy to center of cupcake. That’s it!

Love cupcakes? Love hugs and kisses? Well, these XO cupcakes are for you. They’re very easy to make, even for kids. If you can’t find letter-shaped gel candies, cut out your own using fondant, fruit rolls or whatever you can think of.
What You Need: 2 or more cupcakes (baked and cooled); pink and white frosting; gel letters X and O.
How to Make Them: Frost cupcakes. Add gel letters. That’s it!

These pink and red cupcakes with a swirl design are perfect for Valentine’s Day or any day.
What You Need: 1 cupcake (baked and cooled); icing tinted pink; red writing icing or red icing in pastry bag with round tip #3; round red candy such as sour ball; toothpick.
How to Make It: Frost cupcake pink. Pipe small red circle near center top of cupcake. Pipe two or three more circles around this one. Using toothpick, pull red icing outward from center, wipe off toothpick, and then pull red icing upward from outermost ring. Alternate this technique all around the cupcake. (It’s a variation of a spider web.) Place red candy ball on top of cupcake.