Easy Halloween Cupcake Decorating

I love decorating cakes and cupcakes!  Remember my tutorial on “Easy, Elegant and Professional Cupcake Decorating” and  how excited I got over using the 1M frosting tip to make those cupcakes for Princess’s Birthday?  Well then you can just imagine the loud squeal I let loose when I found out that as one of the Walmart Moms I’d get the chance to play with a nice package of items from Wilton’s Halloween/Harvest decorating line!

Now, I’m a big fan of making cupcakes and cakes yourself-I think it’s very frugal.   I love the challenge of figuring out how to get different effects and I don’t mind spending a bit of time to do so–but I know that isn’t everyone’s thing.

I know some of you out there would like to make cheap0 homemade cupcakes but don’t have much in the way of skills or time.  You are worried that you will create homely cupcakes (and embarrass your kids!).  Well let me tell you-Wilton has your back on this one.  They have created these little sets of themed cupcake liners and cute little picks so even the least talented parent on the block can, with a 1.89 box of cake mix and a tub of frosting, turn out cupcakes that their kids will be proud to take to school.

And the best part?  The liners and picks only cost $1.88!

Just bake your cupcakes, throw some store bought frosting on top and stick the pick in.  You’ll wind up with this:

Not too shabby eh?  Let’s say you want to kick that up a notch without adding too much difficulty.  Pick up a bottle of Wilton sprinkles.  They come in all sorts of cool combinations now:

I decided to try the “Spider Mix”  which had the orange and green sprinkles and then these little black spider candies mixed in.  I started out by putting them in a bowl.

One cupcake I just kind of “rolled” the edge in the sprinkles to give it a border effect, then I stuck a couple of the spiders on.  For the other I just pressed the whole top of the iced cupcake into the bowl so that it was fully covered with sprinkles.  See?  They look adorable!

Let’s say you have a bit more time and a little bit of ambition.  With just a Wilton pastry bag and the famous 1M tip (mine came in the Wilton cupcake decorating kit I bought last year.) you can look like a rock star.  I promise-this will make your cupcakes look 10X more professional but only takes a very tiny bit more skill.

All you do is take your favorite decorator icing, fill the bag and swirl it on (I explain the technique in my Easy, Elegant and Professional Cupcake Decorating Tutorial) and then stick the pick in!

Make sure you don’t use that store bought icing in a tub for this-it’s too soft and instead of hardening up it will sort of melt and ooze-not attractive.  Normally I’d just use my favorite frugal homemade icing recipe, but since Wilton sent me a box of their Buttercream Icing Mix I figured I’d use it.  Just beat together in your mixer 1/3 cup of softened butter and a bit of water and you’ve got it.  And it was really, really delicious.  Even my brother, who happened to stop by while I was frosting, commented on how tasty it was!

Now if you really want to impress folks and look like a TV Chef, I’ve got a technique for you!  Doesn’t that look awesome and difficult?  It’s not!  It’s just the swirl I told you about with a slight twist.  To get a cool, variegated icing effect you just take your clean empty icing bag and paint some gel food coloring on it in stripes:

Then fill up the bag with your white icing and start piping it on.

Without any more effort from you the icing comes out with a cool colored swirl!

Of course you don’t have to use it to make a swirl-you can make little spiky stars:

or whatever else takes your fancy!

There you have it, a whole bunch of very easy ways to decorate your Halloween cupcakes courtesy of Wilton!  Now go forth and get baking!

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart & Wilton have provided me with product and compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.