These easy monster cupcakes are so fun to make with your favorite piping tips, a fun buttercream color palette, and lots of googly eye sprinkles! You can use any cupcake recipe for the cake portion and any buttercream that can be colored for the decoration. I’ve included the recipes for my favorite chocolate cupcakes and vanilla buttercream that I used. This way you can replicate the look of these monster cupcakes and know that they’ll taste amazing!
Why You’ll Love These Monster Cupcakes
- Fun to Decorate. You can get as creative as you want with these monster cupcakes, or keep them super simple. Regardless, it’s so much fun to pipe the buttercream in different textures and watch the googly eye sprinkles turn them into creatures!
- Use Your Favorite Piping Tips. You don’t have to stick to exactly what piping tips I used – any piping can become a monster when googly eye sprinkles are involved!
- Simple Cupcake Recipe. I’ve included recipes for my chocolate cupcakes and vanilla buttercream, both of which are easy to make with simple ingredients and techniques. That said, you can use your favorite cupcake recipe instead, or use any cupcake recipe from my blog.
- Perfect Cupcakes for a Halloween party. This cute monster design will be a hit at any spooky gathering!
Monster Cupcake Supplies
Here are the essential supplies you’ll need to make these monster cupcakes:
- Baked chocolate cupcakes (or any cupcake recipe you love)
- Vanilla buttercream
- Food color gels
- 3-5 of your favorite piping tips. I used Wilton Tip 32, 4B, 233, and 12
- Piping bags
- Colored googly eye sprinkles and/or white googly eye sprinkles
How to Decorate Monster Cupcakes
Color the Buttercream
Divide the buttercream amongst separate bowls and color each bowl with food color gel. For the cupcakes pictured I used AmeriColor Regal Purple, Orange, Sky Blue, and Deep Pink.
Prepare the Piping Bags
Fit the piping bags with the piping tips of your choice and fill them with the colored buttercream. I used Wilton Tip 32, 4B, 233, and 12 for the designs pictured throughout this post.
Pipe the Monster Shapes
This part will depend on what kind of textures you want to pipe! Here’s how I got the look of these different monster cupcakes:
Wilton Tip 4B. Holding the piping tip upright, I piped star textures all over the surface of the cupcake:
Wilton Tip 32. You could also use this tip to create the texture of the cupcake above, but I piped small overlapping swirls in rows on this cupcake below:
Wilton Tip 12. Holding the bag upright, I piped dots of buttercream all over the surface of the cupcake:
Wilton Tip 233. This is a shag piping tip that makes it easy to create buttercream fur! Hold the tip upright, hovering it just above the surface of the cupcake and pull up while you squeeze the piping bag. Release the pressure when you create the fur length you’re going for:
Place the Googly Eye Sprinkles
Press as many googly eye sprinkles onto the surface of each frosted cupcake to make the monsters come to life.
That’s all it takes! Look at how cute these monster cupcakes are:
More Halloween Dessert Recipes You’ll Love
If you need more ideas for your Halloween party table, here are some of my favorite ideas:
- Mummy Cupcakes
- Black Velvet Cupcakes
- Buttercream Monster Cake
- Halloween Candy Bucket Cake
- Monster Shag Cake
- Black Velvet Layer Cake
I hope you love these monster cupcakes as much as I do! Let me know if you make them in the comments below (be sure to leave a star rating!) and feel free to tag @sugarandsparrowco on Instagram to show me if you post a photo. I love to see what you create with my recipes!
Monster Cupcakes
Equipment
Ingredients
Chocolate Cupcakes
- 1 Cup (132g) all-purpose flour
- 3/4 Cup (150g) white granulated sugar
- 1/3 Cup (30g) unsweetened cocoa powder Natural or Dutch-processed
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 Cup (60ml) vegetable oil
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 Cup (120ml) buttermilk, room temperature*
- 1/2 Cup (120ml) hot coffee* or hot water
Vanilla Buttercream
- 1 Cup (226g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 1/2 Cups (420g) powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp (30ml) whole milk, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of salt, or to taste
- food color gels of your choice (I used AmeriColor Regal Purple, Orange, Sky Blue, and Deep Pink)
Additional Supplies
- Piping tips (I used Wilton Tip 32, 4B, 233, and 12)
- Piping bags
- Colorful googly eye sprinkles
- White googly eye sprinkles
Instructions
Make The Chocolate Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners. Line a second pan with two more liners—this recipe makes about 14 cupcakes. Set aside.
- Whisk all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl to fully combine them. Add the vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk and mix on low with either a hand mixer, the paddle attachment on your stand mixer, or by hand until combined. Add the hot coffee (or hot water) in a slow stream. Continue mixing on low until fully combined and smooth, 1-2 minutes. The batter will be very thin.
- Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake liners (no more than ⅔ full) and bake for 15-18 minutes, until a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.
Make The Vanilla Buttercream
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a large bowl with a hand mixer), cream the butter on medium-high until it’s creamy and nearly white in color, about 7 minutes.
- Add the powdered sugar in two additions, mixing on low speed until fully incorporated and scraping down the bowl and paddle in between. Add the vanilla, milk, and salt and mix on low for another 1-2 minutes until fully incorporated.
- Color the Buttercream: Divide the buttercream into separate bowls, one for each color you plan on making. Then, use food color gels to tint each bowl of buttercream to your liking. For the cupcakes pictured, I used AmeriColor Regal Purple, Orange, Sky Blue, and Deep Pink.
Decorate the Monster Cupcakes
- Let the cupcakes cool thoroughly before decorating. Fit the piping bags with the piping tips of your choice, then fill each bag with the colored buttercream. Pipe your desired textured onto each cupcake, topping with googly eye sprinkles as you go. See the tutorial in the blog post above for piping and googly eye placement inspiration. Repeat the decorating process until every cupcake is a monster!
Notes
- The chocolate cupcakes can be made ahead and stored at room temperature, covered with plastic wrap, for up to two days. Alternatively, they can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for up to two months.
- The vanilla buttercream recipe can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. When you’re ready to use it, bring it back to room temperature and re-mix with your stand mixer on low speed to bring it back to frosting consistency.
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