Cupcake Icing Ideas

Cupcakes are not only delicious individual treats for parties and celebrations of all kinds, they are also good opportunities to get a little creative. Cupcakes can allow you to turn your yummy dessert into your own artistic expression through a variety of icing ideas. Learn some fun tips and suggestions on icing ideas for cupcakes to turn your tasty treats into festive pieces. Add this to my Recipe Box.

Personalize

Individualize your cupcake for each guest with a few easy tips. You can ice the cupcakes with a base color, then decorate them with letters to represent a guest's first name, such as a B for Britney, or initials, like JS for John Smith. You can also use this option to try out using cupcakes as placecards for festive and yummy place cards at table settings.

Animal Fun

Another fun icing idea is to decorate your cupcakes like animals. You can use candies and sprinkles for eyes and facial features and get creative. You can easily do a pig with some pink frosting and black and white round sprinkles. Or you can use heavy sugar frosting to mold shapes to make animal bodies and faces to be placed atop your cupcake.

Holiday Fun

Try festive themes for decorating cupcakes at holiday parties. For Halloween, lay out black and orange frosting, along with other colors and a variety of small candies, to make pumpkins, witches and ghosts on your cupcakes. At Christmas, use green and red frosting and candies to make reindeer, Santa Claus or Christmas trees. You can use thick sugar frosting to mold shapes and pieces, like a small Christmas tree, to add atop your cake. On Valentine's Day, make your cupcake for that special someone to trade with your valentine and enjoy together.

Heatlhy Ideas

To add a healthy aspect to cupcakes, try decorating with low-sugar and low-fat cream cheese frosting and various fruits. You can slice up strawberries, bananas and other fruits into different shapes to make things like flowers, stars or anything else creative that comes to mind. Use various berries, like blueberries and raspberries, to make a nice border, as opposed a sugary frosting border. You can even use other healthy options like protein-packed almonds or peanut butter to add some good-for-you flavor to your decorative cupcakes.