10 Cupcake Decorating Trends To Try This Fall

Cupcakes are a fun way to embrace autumn, with cozy flavors and all sorts of frostings to choose from. Simple pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting are always a great choice for bringing a little spice to the season, but sometimes bakers like to kick it up a notch and go all-out with cupcake decorating. This year's fall cupcake ideas are big and bold, decorated with glitter, thick frosting, mountains of marshmallow fluff, and candy toppers. It all starts with a basic, delicious, and fall-inspired cupcake recipe, like this one for Apple Pie Cupcakes. Then, the decorating begins. Dip them in melted chocolate for an extra layer of texture, and then add some sort of extra decoration — maybe a pumpkin made from frosting, or a candy melt in an autumn-inspired shape. Here are some of our favorite cupcake decorating trends to try this fall, including a few spooky ideas for Halloween.

Bakers are taking apple pie cupcakes to the next level this year with an adorable decorating technique that turns each cupcake into a mini apple pie. Each cupcake is baked and then filled with homemade apple pie filling, enough to spill out over the top. Create the classic cross-hatch top of an apple pie by piping frosting onto the completely cooled cupcake and pie filling. Use a recipe like this one for Apple Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Whipped Cream to make a delicious cupcake with a little surprise caramel flavor in the frosting.

Marshmallow fluff cupcake decorating creates a tall topping that resembles soft-serve ice cream. Bakers are using it to make towering edible frights – like Spider Web Cupcakes. Pile each cupcake high with marshmallow fluff, then dip it into melted chocolate wafers to get a crunchy crust. Use gel dye for vivid colors in both the fluff and the crust, and then add marshmallow webbing and a spider or edible spray glitter for a final touch.

Chai Latte Cupcakes are inspiring heart eyes everywhere as we nestle into the fall season. They have a light, spicy, and sweet flavor, and you can decorate them in dozens of different ways. Make them with espresso cream cheese frosting and a single cinnamon stick, or add a star anise to the top and dust them with a heavy dose of cinnamon and sugar crystals. Add a drizzle of honey and a pecan for a different twist on the same spiced cupcakes.

Maple Bacon Cupcakes are always a hit when fall arrives, with their perfect salty-sweet-umami balance. They always feel decadent, and this year they're no different. Mix maple syrup into the frosting for a light, even flavor, or drizzle it on top of the bacon gracing your frosted cupcake for a more targeted flavor and presentation.

Pumpkin Cupcakes are popular in a lot of forms, but these allow you to decorate with a little less frosting than some of the others. Use any flavor you want, such as a perfect vanilla cupcake, for these harvest-inspired decorations and pipe a generous amount of orange frosting onto it. Then you'll press the frosting into a bowl of orange sanding sugar, creating a flat surface coated in orange sparkles. Use a bamboo skewer to lightly press the lines of a pumpkin into the glittered frosting and then add the rest of the frosting detail –- the stem and leaves.

If you want to infuse a little extra magic into your Halloween get-togethers this season, go with a witch's hat theme and make witch's hat toppers out of ice cream cones. Use either edible spray color mist to turn the cones black or dip them in chocolate melting wafers. Then use fondant for the hat base and details, or a cookie to create the base of the hat. Before you top your cupcakes with the witch's hat, fill each with an extra treat that can be discovered when you lift the hat. Add some frosting on top of the cupcake before you place the hat to really go the extra mile.

Totally transform your cupcakes this fall into tiny, edible pumpkins with two cupcakes and a whole lot of fondant. Stack the cupcakes with the tops facing each other to create the pumpkin base, using traditional butter cream frosting to stick the cupcakes together. Then, shave off enough to shape the outside of the two cupcakes into a ball and cover it in fondant. Press lines into the fondant to create the lines in the pumpkin and top with a fondant stem for a finishing touch.

Maple leaf garnishes are popular every fall, and this year, many bakers are going with candy melts and molds to create the perfect topper. Press orange and red melted candy into maple leaf molds to create the perfect fall topper to use as a simple touch or as part of a more elaborate cupcake decorating scheme.

You can make a maple leaf-topped cupcake without using candy melts. Frosted Maple Leaf Cupcakes take a little time, but they look beautiful when they're finished. Pipe the rough shape of a leaf in frosting onto an already frosted cupcake, and then press it down on some wrinkled wax paper to create the effect of a leaf. Use a bamboo skewer to draw leaf veins into the final shape, and use colors like orange, yellow, and red to recreate a fall maple leaf.

This decorating trend makes your cupcakes look like they have an actual apple sitting on top, or at least a realistic-looking sugar apple complete with a stem and leaves. Make a large mound of red frosting on top of each cupcake and then dip them into a bowl of red sanding sugar or sprinkles. Garnish each with a candy melt leaf and a pretzel stick for a stem.