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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Easy Ladybug Cupcakes

Today I wanted to share the easy ladybug cupcakes I made for Cate’s birthday. One of my “things” as a mom is making fun birthday cakes for my kids, but this year Anna simply wanted a cake made out of donuts and Cate wanted chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing. While I was a little disappointed to not be making more elaborate cakes, I will admit it was a nice break, especially one week before Christmas.

Quick tutorial for easy ladybug cupcakes from @janemaynard

Then, the day of her birthday, Cate informed me that she wanted ladybug cupcakes. I was like, “Uh, what?” I was completely unprepared, but really wanted to come through for her. Luckily I had some red cupcake liners and a pack of candy eyes in the cabinet and was able to pull these off!

Quick tutorial for easy ladybug cupcakes from @janemaynard

These ladybug cupcakes are seriously EASY.

  • Cook the cupcakes in red or black cupcake papers.
  • Make a batch of buttercream frosting. Color about 2/3 of it with red food coloring (you’ll need a lot of food color!). Color the rest of the buttercream with black food coloring.
  • Frost the cupcakes with red buttercream using a butter knife, spreading the frosting on smoothly (doesn’t have to be perfect!).
  • Place the black frosting in a piping bag with a small, round tip. Pipe on the outline of the wings, the polka dots, and a head, as shown in the diagram below.
  • Finish off the ladybug with small candy eyes placed on the black icing piped on as the head, right at the edge of the cupcake.

How to decorate easy ladybug cupcakes from @janemaynard

I was able to knock these cupcakes out no problem, and the design is so simple even the non-artistic among us can pull it off.

Click here to get the recipes I used for the chocolate cake and buttercream frosting. (Feel free to use a cake mix, I’m not keeping track!)

Happy decorating!


1 Comment »

  1. 1
    carolina

    Wow – good for you for pulling these off in such short notice! They are super cute! I would have just tried to bribe my child with something else – haha! And I still use your buttercream frosting recipe – it’s my “go to”. Perfect ratio of all the ingredients! 🙂

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