Simple Fun Cupcake Ideas

You can create artisan-style cupcakes that look like you ordered them from a specialty baker. There's no need to make the cake or the frosting from scratch---keep things simple and use store-bought cake mix and a tub of frosting. Spend your time decorating the cakes, dressing them up with your creativity. Use toppings like candy, sprinkles, gel icing, fruit, pie filling and more. Add this to my Recipe Box.

Flower Garden Cupcakes

Make cupcakes that capture the colors of nature. Start with chocolate cupcakes baked with a box cake mix. Frost them with any white or off-white frosting and dust the frosting with pale green sprinkles. Top the cupcakes with real flowers, snipped from your garden; you can also buy an inexpensive spring bouquet from your florist or grocer and snip the buds from the stems. This idea works well for adult birthday parties or wedding showers.

Message Cupcakes

Use cupcakes to spell a word or phrase like "Happy Birthday," "Good Luck," "Baby Boy" and more. Have each cupcake represent one letter in your message, and write the letter on top of the frosted cupcake with candy bits or gel icing. You might use cinnamon red hots to spell out "Happy Anniversary," for example, or pink M&Ms to write "Baby Girl." Get creative with your lettering---you can use black and red licorice strips for straight-line letters, round cookies for the letter "o," or chocolate kisses for dots over the letter "i."

Bug Cupcakes

Martha Stewart creates "bug" cupcakes for kids that are decorated with an extra bit of cake decorated to look like wings. Bake a few extra cupcakes and slice off just the top portion. Cut this portion in half---you'll end up with two half-moon shapes to use as insect wings. Place these "wings" on top of frosted cupcakes, and decorate them with colorful spots of frosting or candy. Use a gumdrop as your bug's head, and licorice antennae.

Healthier Cupcakes

Bake a healthier, lower-fat version of traditional cupcakes by following advice from Betty Crocker: bake your store-bought cake mix with applesauce or plain yogurt in place of vegetable oil. Top your cupcakes with a light dusting of powdered sugar instead of thick frosting, and arrange slices of fruit over the top. Use thin slices of peach, strawberry or kiwi, arranged in a circle. Drop raspberries or blueberries in the center of the circle.

Black Forest Cupcakes

For those who love black forest cakes, you can make a variation on this time-consuming dessert in cupcake form. Use devil's food cake mix for your cupcakes and frost them with vanilla or cream cheese frosting. Transfer your leftover frosting, about a quarter-tub, to a pastry bag with a narrow decorator's tip. Pipe the frosting around the edge of the cupcake---make sure it stands at least a half-inch high. Spoon canned cherry pie filling onto the top of your cupcakes. The piped frosting will hold the runny filling in place. Be sure to serve these with plenty of napkins.