Decorating Cupcakes for Kids

Get creative with cupcakes by following our top tips and sweet recipes.

Mark Boughton/styling: Teresa Blackburn

This spring we are absolutely coco for coconuts. Our tender cupcake recipe features coconut milk and a velvety cream cheese frosting spiked with a teaspoon of coconut extract. Recipe: Coconut Milk Cupcakes

Cupcakes are nice. But cheap decorations on them? Not so nice. Instead, we love to get creative about decorating cupcakes for kids. Here are the tips we swear by:

• Sometimes just the right frosting color and artistic arranging in a fun shape is all it takes to liven up boring cupcakes. If you have chocolate-frosted cupcakes, arrange them in a football shape. Yellow-frosted cupcakes? Make a sun! And if you have pink cakes, a heart is the perfect way to display.
• When decorating each cupcake individually, rummage around in the pantry and fridge for decorations that taste as nice as they look. Candies and chocolate chips are no-brainers, but fresh berries make for great toppings too.
• If you choose sprinkles, you have lots of options. Go for the classic multicolor mix, or choose individual colors or make a mix of your choice of colors. Try using theme shaped sprinkles for the season like ghosts, hearts or sea creatures.
• Red vines and other long, flexible candies make good “lines” for creating drawings on cupcakes.
• When you’re decorating cupcakes for kids, remember that it’s more about the fun and the look than the effort. Carefully rolled fondant shapes are gorgeous, but kids love sprinkles just as much.
• Gel frosting is easy to use, and comes in a wide range of colors. Since it’s translucent, choose a coordinating frosting color (or not! Kids love clashing bright colors.)
• Easter and Halloween candy, particularly in miniature sizes, are ready to go for easy decorating. Turn Easter cupcakes into cute bunnies, or Halloween cupcakes into spooky and ghoulish creations.

—By Nicki Pendleton Wood

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