Halloween Cupcakes – Four Ways
Mummies, brains, spiderwebs and monsters galore, these easy cupcakes are spooktacular for Halloween.
The Halloween countdown continues with these cupcakes! Last week, I made some Halloween-themed fudge with Pedro. Although the Halloween desserts I make are indeed, Halloween-themed, they aren’t gory or bloody like many Halloween confections tend to be.
So these cupcakes aren’t knock-your-socks-off-hide-under-the-covers scary. But they will make just about anyone smile, and that’s really the main reason anyone should bake. To make people happy. At least, that’s why I like to bake.
Last year, I posted a tutorial for some super cool Halloween Pops, that consisted of Oreo mummies, Oreo pumpkins and marshmallow ghosts. This year, I wanted to share with you four simple cupcake decorating techniques for Halloween.
- The Spider Web
- The Mummy
- The Monster
- The Brain
These are very simple but very satisfying, as they yield a beautiful result. One thing I like about this type of decorating is that you can get creative and use whatever is available to you.
I’m not specifying ingredient quantities because these are simply decorating ideas, and it’s up to you how little or how many cupcakes (or cookies- these ideas work great with sugar cookie decorating!) you would like to make.
Before trying out these techniques, please watch the video; it makes a world of a difference because, in this case, you need to learn visually. Plus, a picture is worth 1000 words, and I can reason that a video is probably worth more. So watch to find out how you can decorate cupcakes for Halloween.
For all these Halloween cupcake decorations, I used this cupcake recipe and this vanilla frosting recipe.
Spiderweb Cupcakes
Spiderweb Cupcakes
Ingredients
- Cupcakes
- Vanilla frosting
- Chocolate Ganache/chocolate frosting*
- Toothpicks
Instructions
- To make spiderweb cupcakes, frost the cupcake with vanilla frosting using a butter knife or offset spatula.
- Next, place the chocolate ganache or chocolate frosting in a piping bag.
- Snip a small opening at the bottom of the piping bag (maybe 3 mm in length) and pipe 3-6 circles onto the cupcake. You could also just pipe a spiral.
- Using a toothpick, draw lines from the innermost circle to the outer circle to create a spider-web effect.
Notes
- *Chocolate ganache consists of 100 g (4 oz) chocolate combined with 6 tbsp of boiling hot heavy cream- this is enough for maybe 24 cupcakes. You can also use chocolate frosting, just make sure that the frosting isn’t too thick, as this will make it difficult to create the web effect.
- You don’t need to use vanilla and chocolate- I found that these were the easiest options, but you can totally get creative with colors!
Mummy Cupcakes
Mummy Cupcakes
Ingredients
- Cupcakes
- Vanilla frosting
- Candy eyes
- Piping bag or ziplock bag
- #47 icing tip
Instructions
- To make the mummy cupcakes, pipe two small dots of frosting onto a cupcake, then place the candy eyes on top of the frosting dots.
- Using a piping bag with a #47 icing tip filled with vanilla frosting, pipe lines diagonally across the cupcake, keeping the candy eyes in tact, giving the cupcake a ‘mummy’ appearance.
Notes
- If you can’t find any candy eyes, you can always do what I did with these Frankenstein brownies and make your own.
Monster Cupcakes
Monster Cupcakes
Ingredients
- Cupcakes
- Vanilla frosting
- Neon green frosting
- Marshmallows
- M&Ms
- Tic Tacs*
Instructions
- To make the monster cupcakes, dye vanilla frosting green (or any appropriately bold color).
- Smear the frosting on top of the cupcake using a butter knife or offset spatula.
- Using kitchen scissors, cut slices of the marshmallow. One marshmallow should make approximately 4 slices. You can grease your scissors with a little oil to prevent the marshmallow from sticking to the scissors.
- Place a marshmallow slice on the center of the green-frosted cupcake.
- Then place an M&M in the center of the marshmallow slice.
- Cut the white tic tacs in half, then place under the marshmallow to create a smile. These are the teeth.
Notes
- *I got a lot of comments on the Tastemade Facebook site about using tic tacs for teeth. While I thought they looked cool and expected people to remove them before eating, I do understand why you might not like the minty flavor atop the cupcake. You can use any white candy that resembles a tic tac – or even just snip the marshmallow into smaller pieces. Another option is using white chocolate chips/white chocolate roughly chopped up. You could also just pipe a squiggly line using the leftover chocolate ganache or any sort of frosting.
Brain Cupcakes
Brain Cupcakes
Ingredients
- Cupcakes, I used this recipe
- Vanilla frosting, I used the frosting in this recipe
- Pink food coloring, or any color you think is appropriate for the brain
- Piping bag
- #12 icing tip, this one
Instructions
- To make the brain cupcakes, dye the vanilla frosting an appropriate shade of pink. I like pink even though it might not be the real color of a brain because it’s way more appetizing, and honestly, it still looks like a brain.
- Fill a piping bag with a #12 tip with pink frosting. Draw two semi-circles that meet in the middle (create a circle outline on the cupcake followed by two lines in the center).
- Draw a sqiggly line in each semi circle to create a brain.
Looking for more baked treats for a Halloween party?
