Easy Monster Cupcakes for Halloween

My daughter has a couple of obsessions right now.

The first obsession is cats. (Did you see the free kitty face template I shared last week?) She loves drawing pictures and cartoons of superhero cats.

Obsession number two is cupcakes!  Not only does she love eating cupcakes. (Who doesn’t?)  But she is also completely obsessed with baking and decorating cupcakes!  (And yes, Cupcake Wars is her favorite TV show!) Thanks to the J.M. Smucker Company for partnering with me on this post!

We had an early release day last week which was the perfect opportunity for us to do a bit of baking!  I like to keep things as easy as can be, so we grabbed the Pillsbury Funfetti® Halloween Cake Mix and the Funfetti® Halloween Frosting for our cupcakes.  

I love that cake mix comes with the Funfetti® already mixed in, and the frosting color and sprinkles are perfect for Halloween.

Monster Cupcakes are the Perfect Halloween Cupcake!

Right next to the cake mixes and frosting were all sorts of Halloween themed cupcake decorations.  

We found candy monster eyes, Halloween-themed cupcake wrappers, printed toothpick toppers and other fun edible decorations. 

I grabbed a selection so we could bake up and decorate a variety of Halloween cupcakes.  (If you like cupcake wrappers, be sure to check out these printable Halloween Cupcake Wrappers I posted last year.)

How to Make Monster Eye Cupcakes

1. Bake cupcakes according to package directions and let cool.

2. Mix white frosting with purple food coloring until desired shade of purple is achieved.

3. Frost half the cupcakes with orange Pillsbury™ Funfetti® Halloween Vanilla Flavored Frosting and the other half with the purple Pillsbury™ Vanilla Flavored Frosting.

4.  Add a dab of frosting to the flat side of a mini marshmallow.

5. Press a candy eye into the dab of frosting.

6.  Stick a toothpick into the marshmallow:

7.  Push the monster eye toothpick into the top of a frosted cupcake.  Repeat for the 2nd monster eye. (Unless you want a one-eyed monster!)

The cupcakes themselves can be baked up to 2 days ahead of time. Bake the cupcakes and let cool. You can wrap the muffin tin with plastic wrap and store the cupcakes at room temperature.

Cupcakes can also be baked ahead of time and frozen. Wrap the cupcakes in plastic wrap, then in foil. Freeze up to three months. To use, thaw the cupcakes at room temperature before unwrapping.

Make the Monster Eyes and frost a few hours before serving.