How to Decorate Cupcakes

Decorating cupcakes is a great family activity. Part of the fun is that there are no hard and fast rules to follow. This guide on how to decorate cupcakes will provide with you some ideas to create unique cupcakes for everyday munching and some that are geared toward special holidays and events.

Baking cupcakes is the hard part—once that's over, it's time to have fun and get creative. Enlist the help of your friends and family or throw a cupcake-decorating party to make the activity even more enjoyable. When decorating cupcakes, the options are virtually endless—you can use different colors of icing, various candies and other decorations. This makes them a highly popular treat for a variety of occasions, including birthday parties, pot luck dinners and holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Valentine's Day and Halloween, among others.

Similarly, there are no right or wrong ways to decorate cupcakes. By using icings and candy, along with other objects like plastic trinkets, sprinkles, colored sugar or coconut, it's easy to customize and decorate cupcakes quite easily.

1. Cupcakes for decorating
2. Frosting and/or icing (as many different colors as you choose)
3. A spoon, spatula or knife to spread the frosting
4. A large flat surface, such as a table, for decorating
5. Your choice of decorations, such as bite-sized candies, M&M's, sprinkles, nuts, miniature marshmallows, gumdrops and the like

Optional Supplies

1. Especially if young children are helping, you may want to protect your decorating surface by covering it with waxed paper or a disposable table cloth
2. Use a pastry bag for drawing designs or writing on your cupcakes. You can make your own pastry bag by poking a small hole in a plastic bag

1. Be sure that your cupcakes are completely dry before you begin decorating them. If they are still warm, your frosting may melt

2. Brush any crumbs off the cupcakes before you begin frosting

3. Using a rubber spatula to spread your frosting will reduce the chances of cutting into or destroying your cupcake

4. Use frosting to affix decorations to your cupcakes

5. Placing your cupcakes in the fridge after you have frosted them will help set your frosting and decorations

Frost the entire top of your cupcake with a thin layer of yellow frosting. Use a pastry bag or tooth pick to draw eyes and a smile on the cupcake with black icing.

Use white, pink or red frosting and heart-shaped candies to decorate your cupcakes any way you want.

Remove the center of a cupcake and fill it with cherry or strawberry pie filling. Replace the top of the cupcake and cover it with white frosting. Use a toothpick to poke "vampire bites" in the top of the cupcake. Draw trails of "blood" coming from the "bites" with red icing or food coloring.

Your options when it comes to decorating cupcakes are virtually endless. With frosting and your choice of decorations, you can create dozens of different themed or just plain fun cupcakes. Be creative, have fun and you will have a collection of colorful and tasty treats.