Recipe: Halloween Cupcakes

Recipe: Halloween Cupcakes

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The evenings are getting a little darker, Halloween is approaching and with children around, there often seems to be some sort of spooky event to cater for.

If you are at Center Parcs around Halloween, why not try Halloween Family Cupcake Decorating together? If you’re at home around the spooky season, these decorated cupcakes are a fun little project that children – of all ages – can easily master. If you are short on time or baking skills you can decorate ready-made cakes and use ready to roll icing. Celebrating Halloween at home? You can keep your family amused by giving them some icing and a cake and getting them to decorate their own.

The cake recipe is a standby for all your fairy cake needs, you can add anything to the mix, have them as an after school (or work) snack with an added handful of sultanas and glacé cherries.

Ingredients 

Plain Vanilla Cakes

125g Soft Butter
125g Caster Sugar
125g SR Flour
2 Large Eggs
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Tbsp Milk

Plain Chocolate Cakes

125g Soft Butter
125g Caster Sugar
100g SR Flour
25g Cocoa
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
2 Large Eggs
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Tbsp Milk

Ready-made (or homemade) buttercream for topping, or you can use Nutella.

1 Beat the butter until soft and light
2 Beat in the caster sugar and vanilla until pale
3 Add the eggs and flour (plus cocoa and baking powder for chocolate version) and mix well
4 Add the milk and mix to a soft spoonable consistency
5 Spoon into 9 muffin cases in a muffin tin
6 Bake for 20 minutes at 175ºC turning the tin around after 15 minutes
7 Cool on a rack
8 Spread each cooled cake with a spoonful of buttercream/frosting

If you prefer to make smaller fairy cakes this mix will make 12, just use fairy cake cases and reduce the cooking time to 18 minutes

Spiders

Black and white ready-to-roll fondant icing
Liquorice Catherine Wheels

1 Roll out some black icing and cut out a circle with a cookie cutter slightly bigger than your cake
2 Smooth the circle over the frosted cake
3 Unravel the liquorice and cut into 3cm pieces
4 Make leg holes in the sides of the icing and push the liquorice legs in
5 Make eyes with small balls of black and white icing and fix on with a little water
6 Use the end of a brush or a skewer to make a mouth and add white fangs if you fancy

Pumpkin Patch

Green and Orange ready-to-roll fondant icing
Brown icing or some flakes of chocolate

1 Roll out some green icing and cut out a circle with a cookie cutter slightly bigger than your cake
2 Smooth the circle over the frosted cake
3 Roll a ball of orange icing and mark it with a skewer to make pumpkin segments
4 Press a hole in the top and add an icing or chocolate stalk
5 Twist rolls of green to make tendrils and stick these and the pumpkin to the cake with a little water

Jack Skellington

Black and white ready-to-roll fondant icing
Black food colouring or a tube of black decorating icing

1 Roll out some white icing and cut out a circle with a cookie cutter slightly bigger than your cake
2 Smooth the circle over the frosted cake
3 Make eyes with squashed balls of black icing
4 Poke nose holes with the end of a brush
5 Press on a wide mouth with the end of a brush or skewer and add a few ‘stitches’
6 Brush or squeeze some black icing or food colouring into the nostrils, mouth and stitches

Eyeballs

Black, green and white ready-to-roll fondant icing
Red and green food colouring

1 Roll out some white icing and cut out a circle with a cookie cutter slightly bigger than your cake
2 Smooth the circle over the frosted cake
3 Cut a circle of green for the iris, and a smaller black circle for the pupil
4 Stick these ones with a drop of water and add a small white dot of icing for a highlight
5 With a thin brush add a little colour to the iris and some extra bloodshot wiggles around the eyeball