Kid-Friendly Cupcake Decorating
Decorating cupcakes with kids doesn’t have to be stressful. Just a few kid-friendly cupcake decorating tips will help everyone to have a fun and memorable time!
Have you ever tried decorating cupcakes (or cookies, or cake, or ANYthing crafty) with kids? As a new mom I couldn’t wait for my little guy to help out in the kitchen.
“I’m making cookies!! Do you want to come help mommy crack the eggs?”
“Well this recipe calls for 2 eggs and since you dropped 6 of them let’s just run to the grocery store and grab a few more.”
“Don’t eat the flour…”
“Coloring Easter eggs will be SO much fun! Aren’t you excited?”
“Let’s make a gingerbread house! It will take hours to make and days to dry. Yaaaaaay!”
Six years and 2 kids later I set my boys up with a movie and tiptoe into the kitchen praying that the TV drowns the sound of the mixer turning on. Let’s be honest- baking with kids is hard! We expect it to go off like a Martha Stewart segment with everyone laughing and having a great time. We also expect Martha’s minions to come and magically clear the mess in-between stages. Wouldn’t that be nice?
The fact is there are usually eggs all over the floor and frosting and flour covering every surface. People are crying (not necessarily the kids), there are tantrums (again adults are not immune), your kitchen looks like a crime scene, and you are cursing the person who invented Pinterest.
My 6 and 3-year-old boys decorated these cupcakes almost entirely independent from me. I gave them frosted cupcakes, cupcake wrappers, crayons, paper straws, and lollipops and let them work together on a design. The key to kid-friendly cupcake decorating is having everything done beforehand. Small children may not be interested in working for more than 10 minutes.
Here I set up a station (a small table off to the side) with the craft materials- crayons to decorate the wrappers and scissors for my 6 year old to cut the paper straws. I put down a large piece of cardboard so they didn’t get have to worry about coloring outside the lines…since there were no lines.
At the food table, I had frosted cupcakes and lollipops. Since my toddler was not terribly interested in coloring I set him to work unwrapping the lollipops. I always lay out a plastic bag for trash scraps because you don’t want kids handling the trash bin while decorating cupcakes and cookies.
The key is to have everything prepared and set out beforehand. They may only sit at the table for 5 minutes and you want to be sitting there with them not gathering ingredients. Let them be messy and creative. Nothing is wrong. I had thought we were putting one lollipop in each cupcake but my son did the math and saw we had enough to put 3 on each cupcake. I love the final look!
While their task was to create cupcake wrappers that matched the straws I also let them do whatever they wanted on a few wrappers. There’s nothing wrong with a cupcake served in a Megatron wrapper or a toddler-doodled wrapper! While we were decorating we talked about their favorite cupcakes flavors (chocolate and ALL of them). We also talked about our favorite memories from this summer. My oldest really loved all the swimming he got to do this summer. Our youngest enjoyed our few stays at hotels. The kid loves pushing elevator buttons.
My oldest son went back to school last week and is enjoying the life of a first-grader. His brother misses him terribly and we’re all happy to see that smile when he gets off of the bus. Sometimes we even run inside and decorate cupcakes and eat them before dinner! 😉
Lollipop Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 12 cupcakes, frosted
- 12 paper straws
- 36 lollipops
Instructions
- Cut each paper straw into 3 pieces.
- Unwrap lollipops and place them in the paper straws.
- Arrange lollipops on top of cupcakes.
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23 Comments on “Kid-Friendly Cupcake Decorating”
I think this would be great to take to back to school classroom meet and greet. It would allow all the kids to do something fun together while getting to know everyone.
I would decorate with the kiddos & mine would have hearts & owls!
I would let the kiddos decorate them 🙂 or I could see them with glitter!!! And bling!!!
I think I’d save them for Christmas and set up a kids’ table so they could decorate them!
Oh my gosh, you are hilarious. I am dying of laughter. Baking with kids is super hard. Jude loves to make chocolate chip cookies. But when he was younger, half the flour ends up out of the bowl, and whoops the egg just rolled off the counter… 🙂 Im so glad your boys had a great summer!
Good tips for the future. 🙂
The hotel thing cracked me up. That would be me. My favorite part of trips is usually the hotel (or now, more like B&B). So lazy!
These are too cute! Your kiddos did an awesome job…I love that they put three lollipops in each. And your kitchen sounds like mine when the kids want to help. I was always trying to sneak baking in so they didn’t want to “help”. Although I must say now that they are older it is actually much more fun to have them doing eggs and stuff.
Such a cute post… I can totally relate. I was the same way as a new mom, wanting my little guy to enjoy helping me in the kitchen, but now, I too sneak away when they’re not looking to get my baking done. Sometimes I do set them up a station for decorating, like you’ve done (mostly around the holidays/school parties), and your tips are excellent. Love how the cupcakes turned out, so adorable. 😉
Oh it’s so cute..yummy!!! Best regards from France
How cute are these?! Love what the boys came up with. Such a fun and creative way for kids to get involved!
I seriously want to doodle eyes on the wrappers and make these monster cupcakes lol so cute
So fun! Your boys did a great job!
Absolutely true! Keep it short and sweet! And super cute use of lollipops…
Such a sweet (read: realistic) post, Katrina! Yes, the key when baking with children is to have everything pre-made due to their immensely short attention spans. You are such an awesome mom (read: saint, LOL). And, I think toddler-doodled cupcake wrappers are the sweetest thangs!
This is awesome! E always eats flour too — what’s up with that? Great post, Katrina!
These are some awesome tips lol and the cupcakes look CUTE as pie!…or well….cupcakes 😛
Your behind the scenes description is so funny but what a lovely creative job your boys did. Love the use of the pretty paper straws as lollypop holders. Beautiful frosting colors as well.
Love these! The lollipops in straws is genius!
And, I’m always trying to drown out the sound of my mixer too. My daughter loves baking and I love doing it with her sometimes, but other times? I just wanna get it done quickly and without a big mess. Haha!
Miss your face! We haven’t talked in forever and I was thinking about last night before I fell asleep. (Creepy?)
I would draw stripes and polka dots!
I love how the cupcake wrappers match the paper straws. I really enjoyed reading your story about kids in the kitchen as well. It’s a good thing I didn’t read it first before my adventure with my two little ones or else I might’ve been a little bit nervous. For some reason the three and five year-olds that I worked with were so easy to work with in the kitchen. Although we only made the frosting portion so it was a bit easier (no eggs to break). They did keep asking “when can we eat them, when can we eat them, when can we eat them” . Thanks again for participating In the blog party.
What cute cupcakes you and your kids made! The wrappers and the lollies look so cute!
I hear ya my type A personality loves baking with my kids! But I still try (sometimes!). Love your kids artwork and the bright colors. What a fun party!!
Are you sure you aren’t in my house with me when Jordan and I bake? OMG it’s so true. That’s why we hardly ever do it – it’s not fun for anyone. I love that they used the lollipops with the straws. SO clever!