How to Make Cupcakes Look Like Mini Pies

I know this is a hot take, but I don’t really like pumpkin pie. I usually reach for other Thanksgiving desserts that aren’t pie. Many times, it’s my mom’s pumpkin torte, but this year, it’s going to be pie cupcakes.

Pie cupcakes aren’t mini pies made in a cupcake tin; they’re cupcakes decorated to look like pies. These adorable treats look festive alongside beautiful lattice-topped apple pies, pecan pies and pumpkin pies, but offer flavors that you wouldn’t usually see on a Thanksgiving dessert table. These cupcakes would also be the perfect dessert to serve for Pi Day, or really for any occasion when you’d typically serve a pie.

The resulting pie cupcakes are super cute and look just like miniature versions of your favorite fruit pies. With the help of M&M’s minis and some basic frosting and piping skills, you’ll have them ready to serve in no time.

Ingredients

• Baked cupcakes: Your favorite yellow boxed cake mix will do the trick here. No need to pull out all the stops by making from-scratch cupcakes. Prepare and bake the cupcakes ahead of time so that they cool completely before you begin decorating. If the cupcakes are still warm when you begin frosting, it might melt and slide right off.
• Buttercream: Don’t use store-bought frosting because it won’t pipe like you need it to—a big downside for a dessert that’s so focused on appearance. Instead, use a traditional buttercream frosting. Pull the butter out of the fridge in advance so that it reaches room temperature before you begin preparing the frosting; otherwise, it won’t have the pipable, soft texture that you’re looking for. Use any flavor of frosting you like; however, make sure the frosting remains light-colored so you can easily add food coloring. (As much as I love chocolate frosting, now’s not the time for it.)
• M&M’s minis: These little candies will look like the fruit on your pie cupcakes. Choose red to look like cherries or blue to look like blueberries, or both. You might want to take the time to separate the color of M&M’s you’re using from the rest of the candies in the bag before you begin decorating the cupcakes.
• Food coloring: You’ll need a few shades of food coloring for this cupcake recipe. You’ll want to swipe a red or blue base of frosting on top of each cupcake so that any gaps between the mini M&M’s are the same color as the candies, making the top of each cupcake look more like true fruit pie filling. The rest of the frosting you’ll color to look like a golden brown pie crust. If you don’t have brown food coloring, you can use red, yellow and blue.

Directions

Step 1: Dye the buttercream

Separate one-third of the frosting from the rest and tint it red or blue, depending on the type of fruit pie you want the mini pie cupcakes to resemble.

To the other two-thirds of the frosting, add brown or the right combination of red, yellow and blue so that the frosting turns the same golden color of a pie crust.

Editor’s Tip: Because I don’t have brown food coloring, I mixed red and yellow to make orange first, and then I added blue to the orange frosting. From there, I added more yellow to reach my desired shade.

Step 2: Add the M&M’s minis

Spread a thin layer of the colored frosting onto a cooled cupcake. Leave a little space around the edges of the cupcake for the tan frosting that will resemble the pie crust later.

Then, place the M&M’s minis onto each cupcake top with the “M” facing down, packing the candies as tightly together as you can. Repeat the process with each cupcake until each has the “fruit filling” on top. Avoid frosting all the cupcakes at once before adding the M&M’s, as the frosting will harden slightly as it sits—which means the candies won’t stick as well.

Editor’s Tip: If you don’t have the time (or patience) to put the M&M’s minis on the cupcakes one by one, arrange the M&M’s minis face-up on a dinner plate. Make sure there are no gaps or spaces between the candies, since how they lie on the plate is how they’ll sit on the top of the cupcake. Press the thinly frosted cupcake face down onto the M&M’s minis. Repeat the process with each of the cupcakes. With this method, know that the M&M’s won’t be packed as tightly as they would by hand—and therefore more of the red or blue frosting will show through.

Step 3: Pipe the lattices

Add the tan buttercream frosting to a piping bag fitted with a coupler, a coupler ring and a flat frosting tip (I used Wilton tip #46). Then, pipe diagonal lines across the cupcake, leaving gaps so that the “fruit” can peek through. After you’ve piped diagonal lines in one direction, rotate the cupcakes and do it again, creating a series of straight lines that are perpendicular to the ones you just piped. Try your best to make the lines an equal distance apart from each other.

Editor’s Tip: A coupler and coupler ring make it easier to switch out frosting tips for different designs without transferring the frosting to a different bag. If you don’t have these handy frosting tools, you can normally frost cupcakes with a Ziploc bag as a makeshift solution—but admittedly, this route is harder when you’re trying to create these lattice pie cupcakes. You’ll have to cut a tiny hole in the tip of the bag to make skinny, round lattices (not flat, wide ones) and then cut the hole a bit bigger before piping the “pie crust” around the edges of the cupcake.

Step 4: Pipe the edges of the pie crust

Fit the piping bag with a different frosting tip that resembles the type of pie crust you want the pie cupcakes to have (I used Wilton tip #199). Pipe around the top edge of the cupcake. Repeat for the remaining cupcakes.

Editor’s Tip: I used a star tip, but you can use a tip like Wilton #104 to frost a crimped pie crust.

Pie Cupcake Variations

• Pumpkin pie: Spread a thin layer of orange frosting on the top of the cupcake, skipping the M&M’s and the lattice frosting top altogether. Pipe the tan frosting along the top edge of the cupcake to create the “pie crust.” Add a tiny dollop of white frosting in the middle, which will look like whipped cream.
• Pecan pie: Tint the colored frosting dark brown and use brown M&M’s to make your cupcakes look like baked pecan pie. Skip the lattice top.
• Lemon curd pie: Do the same as you would for a pumpkin pie cupcake—skipping the M&M and lattice frosting—but tint the frosting yellow.

Tips for Making Pie Cupcakes

How long can you store pie cupcakes for?

Keep the pie cupcakes in an airtight container at room temperature for three to four days. Storing them in a dessert carrier like a cake keeper would be even better, especially if you plan to bring these pie cupcakes to a Thanksgiving celebration. You can keep the cupcakes in the fridge, but they’ll have dried out after two days.

Can you make cupcakes that look like pie in advance?

Unlike actual cupcake pies, you absolutely can make these cupcakes the day before your gathering. If you refrigerate them, just let them sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving them for the most flavor.