How To Dress Up Those Store-Bought Cupcakes So They Look Professional

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When you want a particularly polished dessert to present on an extra special occasion, you typically have two options. You can spend several bucks a pop at the finest confectionery in town, or you can unlock some previously unseen skill as a pâtissier. The former option gets expensive when you're buying more than a couple of treats, and the latter is largely unrealistic in most cases. While something like cupcakes can be relatively easy to make at home, all the steps between mixing and finally frosting can be prohibitively time consuming. A pack of good old supermarket cupcakes, instead, can split the difference

Buttercream or bare cupcakes (even some sweet muffins can pass as a bare-faced cupcake) take best to customization. The soft topping is a good base for additions, and the plain one is obviously even more customizable with store-bought frosting hacks that add color and flavor. And you can dress either up with items you already have on hand, or source some with extra care for this very occasion. A melted chocolate drizzle or chocolate shavings, which you can simply create with a candy bar and a vegetable peeler, can add some professional pizzazz. So can a literal cherry on top, should you have a jar of oversized Bada Bings kicking around. And when you're going out of your way to jazz things up, Bee Point edible gold literally gilds those readymade treats like little else.

Those gold flakes are a go-to for desserts that stun, and a whole glittering tableau can give a batch of cupcakes a high-end cohesion. Shining sugar pearl sprinkles in alternating metallics or even mixed on each cupcake, create an intentional, tailored look that could have very well been conceived by a dessert professional. The same goes for food-grade glitter, too. Vibrantly hued edible flowers also create a beautifully blooming garden motif that seems like it's straight out of a magazine. These types of items aren't most folks' idea of pantry essentials, but it's always a good idea to keep a little something that adds only an aesthetic value lying around.

If you've been thrust into a truly last minute cupcake decorating emergency, there is also an admittedly goofy, but still pretty brilliant way to decorate frosted cakes with a paper towel hack that works on more petite sweets, too. And, if you've gone the unfrosted route with plans to top the cupcakes at home, you can make store-bought frosting taste much better with just a few minutes of whipping.