Easy Halloween Cupcakes Video

4 Simple Halloween Cupcakes Designs

Using piping tips doesn’t have to be frightful! These cute Halloween cupcake designs are simple enough for decorating beginners. Using a small handful of piping tips, a batch of cupcakes, frosting, gel food coloring, and some candy eyeballs, I created 4 different designs: Another reader, Sarah, commented: “Thank you, Sally. I made these for my daughter’s birthday today so she could pass them out to her classmates. They turned out perfect! ★★★★★“ Save your fear face for the haunted house and let’s get started!

Start With Your Favorite Cupcakes

The Halloween cupcakes pictured in this post are pumpkin cupcakes. However, you can use any flavor, such as: vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes, confetti cupcakes… or try these delicious cream-filled chocolate cupcakes—you could tint the cream filling orange, or even blood-red for a spooky treat vampires would love to sink their fangs into! No matter which cupcakes you choose, make sure they are completely cooled before you begin decorating.

Use a Sturdy Buttercream Frosting

The best frosting option for decorating these Halloween cupcakes is definitely vanilla buttercream. I slightly scaled up the recipe so there’s enough for these fun decorations. You want a very sturdy white frosting that will pipe on easily and hold the detailed designs. If you prefer a less-sweet frosting, you could also use this Swiss meringue buttercream. You could use cream cheese frosting, but the piping won’t be as defined. I strongly recommend using the vanilla buttercream recipe in the recipe card below. I love it because while it’s sturdy, pipe-able, and tint-able to any color, it’s also sweet, creamy, and tastes great on pretty much any flavor cupcake. Functional as well as tasty—this frosting delivers both tricks AND treats! Gel food coloring works best, and I used Americolor Orange, Leaf Green, Super Black, and Fuchsia + Violet (I used a little of each to make a pinkish-purple).

Monster Cupcakes

Aren’t the monster cupcakes so silly? You can make both designs with the same open star piping tip. If you’re also making the jack-o’-lantern cupcakes, you’ll use the same tip for the pumpkin stem. As an alternative look for monster fur, you could use a grass tip like Wilton 233, which is what I use for Cookie Monster cake and Elmo cake. For the green monster, you’ll pipe a simple spiral of green-tinted frosting onto the cupcake, then place a large candy eyeball in the center. For the purple monster, you’ll pipe little stars across the surface of the cupcake, the same way you make hydrangea cupcakes for this cupcake bouquet. Add on some small candy eyeballs and sprinkles, and your monsters are ready to party!

Gel Food Coloring: I use Leaf Green for the green monster. I also use the smallest dot of Super Black to mute the color, because leaf green can be a little neon. For the pictured purple monster, I use Fuchsia + Violet to make a pinkish-purple shade. Disposable Piping Bags or Reusable Piping Bags Open Star Piping Tip: Use Wilton #21 for both monster designs Couplers are needed if you’re switching around your piping tips and frosting colors. Because you use the same tip for both the green and purple frosting, a coupler makes it easy to switch the tip between bags of frosting. Candy Eyeballs: You need large candy eyeballs for the green monster, and small candy eyeballs for the purple monster. If you can find an assorted size pack of candy eyeballs, that’s the best thing to buy to make these monster cupcakes as well as the spider cupcakes. Halloween Sprinkles: Optional, but a fun addition!

Another option for spider cupcakes: Make these cream-filled chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate ganache. Then use the white whipped buttercream filling to pipe a web on top of the ganache. You’ll need to tint a small amount of the remaining whipped buttercream black to pipe the spiders’ legs. Here’s everything you need for these jack-o’-lantern cupcakes:

Gel Food Coloring: Orange, Leaf Green, Super Black 3 Disposable Piping Bags or Reusable Piping Bags Piping Tips: A large petal tip like Wilton 125, a small open star tip like Wilton 21, and a small round tip like Wilton 4

Use the petal tip to pipe the orange frosting on first. Start with the sides and work your way in, finishing with a vertical line down the middle. Add on the green stem. Then use the black frosting fitted with a small round tip to draw on the eyes, nose, and mouth. Make it as goofy or spooky as you like! Here’s everything you need for these spider cupcakes:

Gel Food Coloring: Super Black 1 Disposable Piping Bag or Reusable Piping Bag Small Round Piping Tip: I use Wilton 4 Oreo Mini Cookies: Twist open the mini Oreos to separate them. I scrape off the filling so that the spider sits a little lower on the cupcake, but you can leave the filling on if you’d like. Mini Candy Eyeballs: Use the tiniest ones you can find! Have you ever seen these decorated Halloween cookies before? Use the same teeny eyes on the decorated bat cookies. If you can’t find the mini ones, you can substitute ball-shaped sprinkles.

Finally, pipe 2 small dots of black frosting onto the Oreo and gently press the mini candy eyeballs to them to stick. Finish by piping on 8 black frosting legs. Obviously spider webs are white, so you could swap the black and white frostings here: