Skeleton Halloween Cupcakes (Step by Step)

These are adorable Skeleton Halloween Cupcakes that are perfect for spooky season! Easy to make and so cute for classroom parties and a fun activity to do with your kids!

Skeleton Halloween Cupcakes

Halloween is such a fun holiday to decorate for. You can go super spooky with ghosts, skeletons and ghouls, or so more festive with pumpkins and scarecrows. It’s really all about the vibe you prefer! Today we’re getting cute, but spooky with these sweet Skeleton Cupcakes! They are easy to assemble and are the perfect treat for the guests of your Halloween party.

Why You’ll Love This Halloween Cupcakes Recipe

• Easy. Just bake up some vanilla cupcakes, add frosting, then dip them in sprinkles and assemble your skeletons on top. The skeletons are made with store-bought items so they are insanely easy to do.
• Super cute! Just look at those festive sprinkles and adorable skeletons? This is the kind of spooky-fun dessert that everyone loves.
• Impressive & fun. If you’re looking for a simple Halloween dessert that will impress everyone, this is it! Kids can even help decorate their cupcakes as a fun party activity.

What You’ll Need

You’ll need to gather your supplies before getting started with your cupcakes. Here is the short list with helpful links for ordering!

• Baked cupcakes. You can bake cupcake from scratch using my vanilla cupcakes recipe or my chocolate cupcakes recipe. Even a pumpkin pie spice frosting would be delish! And you can absolutely make cupcakes using a boxed mix, or even a bakery cupcake. The star of the who here is the cute skeleton toppers, so use whatever cupcakes you prefer!
• Frosting. I, of course, use my buttercream frosting recipe because it’s the BEST, but again use whatever frosting you like. You can even use canned frosting, cream cheese frosting or chocolate. You will need it to top the cupcakes, or course, but also to use as a “glue” when assembling the skeletons. 
• Lollipop sticks. I ordered my lollipop sticks on amazon HERE, but you can readily find them at craft stores, or even Walmart or Target. They need to be 6- inch sticks to give you enough room, but no longer. You might even need to trim the lollipop sticks depending on how high you swirl your frosting. 
• White chocolate covered pretzels. You can find these easily at the supermarket, or order them. Here are the pretzels I used!
• Food coloring pens. You will use these to draw on the faces of your skeletons. I purchased my food markers on Amazon.
• Marshmallows. You will both regular sized marshmallows as well as minis for your skeletons. The regular sized will be used for the faces and the minis will be used in between the pretzel “ribs” as a space maker. 
• Festive sprinkles. This is optional, but they do add to the cuteness! I bought my Halloween sprinkles online.

How To Make Skeleton Halloween Cupcakes

The steps of these are all easy. Give yourself a little grace on the first one, but one you get the hang of it, you’re good to go!

• Gather your supplies. It helps to have your cupcakes baked BEFORE you make the skeleton toppers.
• Add frosting and sprinkles. Spread frosting on top of each cupcake and coat the entire top with sprinkles. The easiest way to do this is to just dip the entire frosted part of your cupcake in a plate with sprinkles on it, but you could just rim the cupcake or use a light hand.

• Prep the marshmallows. Flatten the regular sized marshmallows into circles for the heads and draw on faces with the black food coloring marker. Press the lollipop stick into the marshmallow creating a the skeleton head. 
• Assemble the skeletons. Now take 3 pretzels which will be the skeleton “rib cage”. Thread one onto the lollipop stick. Take a mini marshmallow and squeeze it flat between your fingers. Thread this after the pretzel and repeat the process 2 more times so you have 3 pretzels on the stick. The mini marshmallows give space between the pretzels. (You can also use frosting for this to add to the stability and hold the pretzels in place so they don’t spin.)
• Add to your cupcakes. Next place the skeletons into the cupcakes by pressing the lollipop stick into the center of the cupcake.
• Add arms. Then break the pretzels apart into pieces to create “arms”. Spread a small amount of frosting on one side of the piece and then rest it on the top “rib”. The more curved the piece of pretzel is, the better it will hook on. Hope this makes sense!

Ta da! You just make skeleton cupcakes for Halloween.

How To Store These Skeleton Cupcakes

Cupcakes can be stored for up to 3 days at room temperature. They are a little more challenging to store when they’ve been assembled with the skeleton toppers, but placed in a large container, nestled together and covered with plastic wrap (Cling Wrap or Press N Seal) works great!

Can I Make Cupcakes Days In Advance?

You can make cupcakes up to 3 days in advance if stored airtight at room temperature. They will be good for up to 5 days if stored airtight in the refrigerator. You can even freeze cupcakes, frosted or unfrosted stored airtight in the freezer for up to 60 days.

Fun Variation Ideas

There are so many fun variations for the cupcakes. Here are few ideas:

• Use the toppers on a layer cake! This could make a super impressive cake a lot like my Vampire Bat Cake!
• Colored frosting instead of sprinkles, or both! Orange frosting would be adorable!
• Pumpkin cupcakes. Try making pumpkin cupcakes instead of vanilla to really get fall themed!
• Add eyes. Use eyeballs sprinkles or candy eyes instead of the black edible marker. Attach them to the marshmallow with a little frosting.
• Pipe some frosting. Use a piping bag to swirl the frosting up, or use green food coloring in the frosting and a piping bag with a small round tip to make the frosting look like grass! Use any piping tips you would like!
• Add candy shapes. You could even add some gummy worms or candy bones on top of the cupcake to make them the most spooky treats.

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