Piping Tips Are The Secret To Perfectly Festive Pumpkin-Shaped Cupcakes

When the autumn chill hits, it's time to look to the best fall pumpkin baking recipes. The visual appeal can hit a high note if your pastry looks like a pumpkin in a cupcake form. For the majority of home bakers, these end up looking a bit amateur, with orange frosting pasted onto a regular round cupcake canvas. Luckily, there's an easy trick to getting those pumpkin cupcakes to look more pumpkin-like. Fortunately, this hack doesn't require professional-level pastry chef skills. You just need frosting piping tips. 

While you probably already use frosting tips for decorating, you can use them before the cupcakes even start to bake to get a darling pumpkin shape. For each cupcake, you'll need two frosting tips. Because they will stay in the cupcake tray during the baking process, these need to be able to withstand high heat without melting. For that reason, don't use plastic tips for this hack. Stainless steel tips would be the best alternative. You'll also need cupcake tray liners — disposable or reusable silicone ones will work fine as long as they are flexible. 

Among all indispensable baking hacks, this trick is great because it doesn't require any special skills or even altering your usual cupcake recipe and routine. Make your favorite cupcake recipe and fill the cupcake liners as usual. Take care not to overfill your liners because you will be squishing the paper together. Once you've distributed the mix between the liners and they're all filled evenly, it's time to use the piping tips. 

Just take two piping tips — size and shape don't really matter so long as they are round on the outside — and put them on opposite sides of the cupcake liner. Then gently squeeze them inwards. Since pumpkins aren't perfectly round, this trick gives them a more natural shape and makes for a more interesting cupcake design. Bake your cupcakes as the recipe calls for and then remove the piping tips once they are fully cooled. You should be left with a dimpled pumpkin-shaped cupcake ready for decorating. If you don't have enough piping tips to devote two to each cupcake, you can use just one to create a small divot for a frosting stem.